Pete Rose may not make the Hall of Fame, but a statue of him is going to be erected outside the Cincinnati Reds ballpark.
When I first came to New York City, what I was thrilled about was not the Empire State Building, or the Statue of Liberty; it was the fireplugs in the street. These things that Jack Kirby had drawn. Or these cylindrical water towers on top of buildings that Steve Ditko’s ‘Spider-Man’ fights used to happen in and around.
I’ve always had a strong feeling for the Statue of Liberty, because it became the statue of my personal liberty.
We’re all just bags of bones and muscle and hormones; I’ll never understand what makes our minds do the things we do. It’s like that statue of the monkey holding a skull. We’re trying to use a thing we don’t understand to understand ourselves.
I don’t see any justification for the federal government owning land, other than the Statue of Liberty and maybe a few parks, maybe a few refuges. But to just own land to do nothing with it I think is a disservice to the Constitution.
You would think with me living in Los Angeles I would go to the beach all the time, but we don’t. It’s the same as visiting the Statue of Liberty. If you don’t live in N.Y.C., it’s the first stop on your family vacation, but if you live there, you only go if you have relatives visiting from out of town!
When my mother, sisters and I arrived on the shores of America when I was 8 years old, the boat on which we came, a freighter, passed the Statue of Liberty.
You may name a bronze statue ‘Liberty,’ or a painted figure in a city hall ‘Commerce,’ or a marble form in a temple ‘Athene’ or ‘Venus;’ but what is really there is only a representation of a single woman.
I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.
My statue at Ole Miss is a false idol. And it wasn’t put there for my benefit. It was put there for Ole Miss and Mississippi.
When you look at what’s written under the Statue of Liberty, it’s the immigrant story. It’s about ‘bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ It’s not about ‘only bring me only your rich, your wealthy, your smart.’
Over my dead body when I’m governor of Virginia are we ever going to take down the statue of Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson or any hero of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
My life used to be like that game of freeze tag we played as kids. Once tagged, you had to freeze in the position you were in. Whenever something happened, I’d freeze like a statue, too afraid of moving the wrong way, of making the wrong decision. The problem is, if you stand still too long, that’s your decision.
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