"Dear Frozen Peas Manufacturer, We are writing to you because we feel that the peas illustrated on your package of frozen peas are a most unattractive color. We are referring to the 16oz plastic package that shows three or four pods, one of the split open, with peas rolling out near them. The peas are a dull yellow green, more the color of pea soup than fresh peas and nothing like the actual color of your peas, which are a nice bright dark green. The depicted peas are, moreover, about three times the size of the actual peas inside the package, which, together with their dull color, makes them even less appealing—they appear to be past their maturity and mealy in texture. Additionally, the color of your illustrated peas contrasts poorly with the color of the lettering and other decoration on your package, which is an almost harsh neon green. We have compared your depiction of peas of peas to that of other frozen peas packages and yours is by far the least appealing. Most food manufacturers depict food on their packaging that is more attractive than the food inside and therefore deceptive. You are doing the opposite: you are falsely representing your peas as less attractive than they actually are. We enjoy your peas and do not want your business to suffer. Please reconsider your art. Yours sincerely." — Lydia Davis Can't and Won't, "Letter to a Frozen Peas Manufacturer"
"Under all this dirt the floor is really very clean." — Lydia Davis Can't and Won't, "Housekeeping Observation"
"This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip—I keep trying to read it. I have gone back to it so many times, each time dreading it and each time finding it no better than the last time, that by now it has become something of an old friend. My old friend the bad novel." — Lydia Davis Can't and Won't, "The Bad Novel"
"One thing more dangerous than getting between a grizzly sow and her cub is getting between a businessman and a dollar bill." — Edward Abbey A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
"To do good, you actually have to do something." — Yvon Chouinard American Express commercial
"I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a ‘surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered fellow’. Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon." — Edward Abbey A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
"Politicians are like weather vanes. Our job is to make the wind blow." — David Brower
