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unearths some literary gems.
From How Not to Write a Play, by Walter Kerr:
***In the course of more than half a century, however, we have fairly thoroughly explored the possibilities of [onstage] chocolate-sipping.***[We erroneously suppose that] literary value transposed to the theater is simply literary value enclosed in quotation marks. [I.e., dialogue and other structural constraints.]***For the dramatist, the door remains wide open....But he does have to find the door.***[Quoted from the program of The Seven Year Itch]"The curtain will be lowered for thirty seconds to denote a lapse of thirty seconds."***There is no way in which precise mathematics can be applied to the problem, but a hypothetically perfect imitation of something would be about fifty per cent like it and fifty per cent unlike it. A fifty-one per cent similarity begins to move us toward chaos....[Nice job resisting a silly mathematical precision, Walter!]***We conclude that the only way we can say something about the universe is by becoming Universal, with capital letters strewn all over the place.***Abstractions do not have to sit down.***
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