Daniel Mark Epstein > Quotes

“He was a secretive man, who kept his own counsel. He was an ambitious man of humble origins, with colossal designs on the future. And it would always be advantageous not to be closely known, never to be transparent. Passing a farmer on a day, he would tip his hat and grin. Everybody knew him. Nobody knew him. He would play the fool, the clown, the melancholy poet dying for love, the bumpkin. He would take the world by stealth and not by storm. He would disarm enemies by his apparent naiveté, by seeming pleasantly harmless. He would go to such lengths in making fun of his own appearance that others felt obliged to defend it. -Daniel Mark Epstein.”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage

“p. 39 Rum, in fact, was the unspoken demon in most negotiations and failed treaties with the Delaware nation. That evil influence has been largely expunged from histories. Access to rum, or its prohibition, assured or canceled oaths and pacts no sooner than they were sworn.”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, The Loyal Son: The War in Ben Franklin's House

“Because the media control sources of information, according to Dylan, “We live in a world of fantasy where Disney has won. . . . It’s all fantasy.”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait

“The “Eternal Circle,” Dylan called it, the timeless story of the emotional loop between the singer and the audience, feeding on each other, one locked in the light, the other in the darkness of the theater, no one ever completely satisfied.”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait

“Things will have to change. And one of those things that will have to change: People will have to change their internal world.” On”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait

“Historian Daniel Boorstin once noted a shift in American values that had replaced the classic hero with the celebrity. “The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image. . . . The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media.” He added, darkly: “The very agency which first makes the celebrity in the long run inevitably destroys him. He will be destroyed, as he was made, by publicity.”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait

“Poetry, as Allen Ginsberg reminded his friends, is news that stays news.”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait

“Someone else asked Dylan if he believed television and the media had killed poetry. “Oh, absolutely. Because literature is written for the public. There’s nobody anymore like Kafka who just sits down and writes something without wanting somebody to read it.” These days, he argued, the mass media have preempted the precious paths of communication that once belonged to poets and their readers. We see things on television that are more horrifying, sad, or hilarious than we are likely to see in real life. “The news shows people things that they couldn’t even dream about, and even ideas that people thought they could repress. . . . So what can a writer do when every idea is already exposed in the media before he can even grasp it and develop it?” Because”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A Portrait

“If the Bible is true, why do our neighbors pay good tax money to tear down our faith?”
― Daniel Mark Epstein, Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson