trifler

“Voters attend debates to compare them, not triflers who want to see their names in print.” Joan Little; Council Boots Away Soccer Opportunity; The Spectator (Hamilton, Canada); Sep 14, 2010. “The poet lives, and dies, and is immortal; but the eternal trifler of all complexions never dies.

The eternal trifler comes and goes, sucks blood of living men, is filled and emptied with the surfeit of each changing fashion. He gorges and disgorges, and is never fed. There is no nurture in him, and he draws no nurture from the food he feeds on. There is no heart, no soul, no blood, no living faith in him: the eternal trifler simply swallows and remains.” Thomas Wolfe; You Can’t Go Home Again; Harper & Row; 1940.