“The world is not something that produces information. Information is something that produces the world (Rules, pp. 263-264).
Sour Grapes
“True patronage will often be dismissed as philistinism by those who didn’t make the cut” (Rules, p. 258).
Funding the Wrong Thing
“I would argue that more patrons are willing to be patrons than artists are willing to be artists. Responsible patrons are put off by the bohemian posturing. If they are not put off by it, then they are funding the decadence of intellectual rot. If they run across a little lord byron in skinny jeans, …
Dumb in the Grand Style
“How many of us have had the experience of staring at a movie screen, thinking that thing up there the ‘dumbest thing I ever saw,’ while at the same time reeling under the weight of the knowledge that the dumbest thing you ever saw cost 75 million to make? And somebody — let us call …
Or Three Good Cameras
“It will never be possible to fix a bad story with good cameras” (Rules, p. 255).
That Kind of Calvinist
“And by Calvinist, I do not mean someone who grew up in the environs of Grand Rapids, and whose thought processes are tinctured with some elements of a by-gone Reformed tradition. I mean somebody who actually thinks that God is God, all the way up, all the way down, and all the way across” (Rules, …
Coming Out
“The goal was not to destroy holiness, but to get it out of the monasteries. The goal was not to destroy beauty, but to get it out of places where it was being falsely worshiped, and move it to places where it could be innocently enjoyed” (Rules, p. 251).
Their Invisoganda
“Fireproof and Courageous . . . could have been every bit as heavy-handed without exciting comment had the message been about climate change, treating a gay teenage boy with dignity and respect, or some down-‘n-out protagonist discovering the critical importance of ‘believing in himself'” (Rules, p. 247).
Two Ways to Go, and One of Them’s Bad
“There are only two forms of engagement that Christians can engage in — we must either adopt a transformationalist approach or a compromising approach. If we are not going to go the escapist route, waiting for the rapture, we must either take every thought captive, or we must split the difference” (Rules, p. 241)
No Substitute
“If we are going to be engaged in true cultural reformation, we need a gospel that kicks the devil in the teeth. And that means it must be a message of penal, substitutionary, vicarious blood-bought atonement. When it comes to this substitute, we must accept no substitutes” (Rules, p. 239).