I long ago ran out of bookshelf space and so, like a museum with its art, simply rotate my books from the… — Michael Dirda Art Copy Share Image
Any man's death diminishes us, but when an artist passes away, we lose not just an island but an entire archipelago. — Michael Dirda Art Copy Share Image
I think that his [Kurt Vonnegut's] appeal, though, will always be chiefly to adolescents. His sense of the world matches that of… — Michael Dirda Absurdity Copy Share Image
I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others… — Michael Dirda Books Copy Share Image
With any luck, Heaven itself will resemble a vast used bookstore, with a really good cafe in one corner, serving dark beer… — Michael Dirda Beer Copy Share Image
In 1911, Edgar Rice Burroughs, having failed at everything else, decided to write a novel. He was then in his mid-thirties, married… — Michael Dirda Books Copy Share Image
When I was a boy in the late 1950s, the public library refused to stock books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. They were… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
This Is Not a Novel memorializes the treasures and detritus of one man's singularly cultured mind. (...) If you don't know Writer's… — Michael Dirda Book Copy Share Image
Basically, I think that most people either make too much money or not enough money. The jobs that are essential and important… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Because of Kipling, I've sometimes wondered about keeping a mongoose about the house. But given the cobra population in Silver Spring, Maryland… — Michael Dirda Cobra Copy Share Image
Digital texts are all well and good, but books on shelves are a presence in your life. As such, they become a… — Michael Dirda Books Copy Share Image
“The patient accretion of knowledge, the focusing of all one's energies on some problem in history or science, the dogged pursuit of… — Michael Dirda Excellence Copy Share Image
Sometimes the very best of all summer books is a blank notebook. Get one big enough, and you can practice sketching the… — Michael Dirda Beach Copy Share Image
In my younger days, I used to visit record shops and covet boxed sets of Beethoven symphonies, Wagner operas, Bach cantatas, Mozart… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Late summer is perfect for classic mysteries - think of Raymond Chandler's hot Santa Anas and Agatha Christie's Mediterranean resorts - while… — Michael Dirda Ambitious Copy Share Image
At any given moment, I've always assumed that nearly everyone around me was smarter than I was, more naturally gifted, quicker-witted, and… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Critics for established venues are vetted by editors; they usually demonstrate a certain objectivity; and they come with known backgrounds and specialized… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
To an Ohio boy, it represented world-weary Gallic shrugs and Gauloises cigarettes, existentialist thinkers in berets and Catherine Deneuve in nothing at… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
The only kind of notebook I actively dislike is the steno pad, entirely because of that vertical line down the middle of… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
My urge at Christmas time or Hanukkah-time or Kwanzaa-time is that people go to bookstores: that they walk around bookstores and look… — Michael Dirda Books Copy Share Image
It's a sad commentary on our time - to use a phrase much favored by my late father - that people increasingly… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
In classic noir fiction and film, it is always hot. Fans whirr in sweltering hotel rooms, sweat forms on a stranger's brow,… — Michael Dirda Darkness Copy Share Image
Carl Barks was born in Merrill, Oregon, in 1901, grew up in a farming family, and eventually held a number of blue-collar… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
In a single lifetime, roughly from 1865 to 1930, one finds the pioneering and patterning works of modern fantasy, science fiction, children's… — Michael Dirda Adventure Copy Share Image
Born in 1910, Wilfrid Thesiger spent his childhood in Ethiopia, or Abyssinia, as it was then called, where his father was an… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
To my mind, 'Dear Brutus' stands halfway between Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 'Into the Woods'.… — Michael Dirda Dreams Copy Share Image
People sometimes think that I bring home all these old books because I'm addicted, that I'm no better than a hoarder with… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
In truth, I'm not really a cat person. Seamus, the wonder dog, still deeply mourned by all who knew him, was just… — Michael Dirda Cats Copy Share Image
I've been slightly obsessed with paper and notebooks. Among my most precious possessions is a small light-blue, breviary-sized volume - four-and-a-half inches… — Michael Dirda Company Copy Share Image
A job should bring enough for a worker and family to live on, but after that, self-realization, the exercise of one's gifts… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
While Napoleon believed his fortunes to be governed by destiny, his real genius lay in self-control and martial daring coupled with an… — Michael Dirda Destiny Copy Share Image
Deep in my cortex, the year is divided into reading seasons. The period from mid-October to Christmas, for instance, is 'ghost story'… — Michael Dirda April Copy Share Image
I don't like gross monetary inequities. I firmly believe that the wrong people and the wrong professions are being rewarded, and rewarded… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Most lyric poetry is about love, whether yearned after, fulfilled, or wistfully regretted; what isn't tends to consist of laments and cris… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
My own particular feline companion answers, or rather doesn't answer, to Cinnamon. One of my kids must have given her the name,… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
I once read that in vaudeville, it was often the straight guy who got paid more than the comic because that's the… — Michael Dirda Books Copy Share Image
Literary generations come and go, and each generation passeth away and is heard of no more. In the end, simply the making… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
For those of us with an inward turn of mind, which is another name for melancholy introspection, the beginning of a new… — Michael Dirda Beginning Copy Share Image
Close friends, or those in my pay, sometimes call me a literary polymath, while others say that I'm just a shallow dilettante,… — Michael Dirda Close friends Copy Share Image
Many cultures believe that on a certain day - Halloween, the Irish Samhain Eve, Mexico's 'Dia de los Muertos' - the veil… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
![“I think that his [Kurt Vonnegut's] appeal, though, will always be chiefly to adolescents. His sense of the world matches that of young people, who feel deeply life's absurdity.” quote by Michael Dirda](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/2ad/michael-dirda-3414_absurdity_i-think-that-his-kurt-vonnegut-s-appeal_652900.png)
