I have few illusions: the cause is lost in advance. As for me, I do my part, which is to drag a fairly drab existence to its conclusion.
But jest apart--what virtue canst thou trace In that broad trim that hides thy sober face? Does that long-skirted drab, that over-nice And formal clothing, prove a scorn of vice? Then for thine accent--what in sound can be So void of grace as dull monotony?
On the other hand, the seventies were drab. That is, I am utterly fascinated by the fifties and sixties.
I have been flooded with color on the inside, drab on the outside.
Acting is hard work. At times, it's very energizing and enervating. It's childish. It's also responsible. It's illuminating, enriching, joyful, drab. It's bizarre, diabolical. It's exciting.
I know animals more gallant than the African warthog, but none more courageous. He is the peasant of the plains - the drab and dowdy digger in the earth. He is the uncomely but intrepid defender of family, home, and bourgeois convention, and he will fight anything of any size that intrudes upon his smug existence. . . . His eyes are small and lightless and capable of but one expression - suspicion. What he does not understand, he suspects, and what he suspects, he fights.
It makes a tremendous emotional and practical difference to one whether one accepts the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints.
Drab Habitation of Whom? Tabernacle or Tomb - or Dome of Worm - or Porch of Gnome - or some Elf's Catacomb?
The height of the mountaintop is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley.
I was haunted always by my other life-my drab room in the Bronx, my square foot of the subway, my fixation upon the day's letter from Alabama-would it come and what would it say?-my shabby suits, my poverty, and love. While my friends were launching decently into life I had muscled my inadequate bark into midstream. . . I was a failure-mediocre at advertising work and unable to get started as a writer. Hating the city, I got roaring, weeping drunk on my last penny and went home.
We knew the pain of winter rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and how drab and infuriating it was to jump rope while the boys played baseball. We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other.
To hell with exciting. I'd rather be drab as hell and win.
