Miscegenation

There is, of course, no such thing as miscegenation ... what logic says 'a black father and a white mother produces a child half-black and half-white'? (Might as well say 'a male father and a female mother produces a child half-male and half-female'). Race is no realer than gender.

Writer

The task of the writer? Why, to bracket the impossible with the possible, of course.

Death says

Death says: 'it's not the gathering up of lives that is my joy; what I gather, and what I love, is the look of surprise on people's faces. That is my addiction'.

Tell us what to do! Don't tell me what to do!

Obviously we don't want to be told what to do ... we want freedom. Equally obviously, we don't want to be cast adrift ... we want guidance, leadership.

A properly dialectial psychoanalysis would say: not that we want to be told what to do some of the time and left to our devices at others--nor that we want a sort of middle-ground between the two positions--but rather that we want both of these extremes at the same time and all the time.

Umbrellas

The pterodactyl quality of umbrellas ...

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest

Presumably Gray means that country graveyards are full of inidviduals who, but for the vagaries of chance, might have had careers as famous as Milton's. But then again perhaps he knew exactly what he was saying: that Milton minus his voice and his glory is not Milton in any meaningful sense. Or more specifically, on those terms we're all Milton.

Heathrow

Here, the sky is angry.