Reification swaps out a political problem for a scientific or technical one; it’s how, for example, the effects of unregulated tech oligopolies become “social media addiction,” how climate catastrophe caused by corporate greed becomes a “heat wave” — and, by the way, how the effect of struggles between labor and corporations combines with high energy prices to become “inflation.”

No one entered more fully than Shakespeare into the character of this species of poetry, which admits of no expletive imagery, no merely ornamental line.

A platoon sergeant may only be a noncommissioned officer but he's the one his men look to when the bullets start flying.

[…] what good will my vanities do, when death says he will have no nay? What good will all my companions, fellow-jesters, jeerers, liars, drunkards, and all my wantons do me? Will they help to ease the pains of hell?