I'm an appreciator. I love all kinds of books, and I want others to love them, too. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Neither my mom nor my dad ever bought me any comic books. Certainly not for Christmas. I suspect that doing so would… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
None of us, of course, will ever read all the books we'd like, but we can still make a stab at it. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
I am something of an aficionado of thrift stores. In my youth, I regularly searched their shelves for old books. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
What I enjoy about reviewing and writing for newspapers and periodicals is simply the chance to talk about all kinds of books… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Adventurous reading allows one to escape a little from the provincialities of one's home culture and the blinders of one's narrow self. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
I've always liked an easygoing, colloquial style. I like the kind of reviewer who is essentially a fellow reader, an enthusiast, a… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
The world is a library of strange and wonderful books, and sometimes we just need to go prowling through the stacks. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Whatever Kurt Vonnegut's ultimate status will be in the annals of literature, he was important to a lot of people right now.… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Sad to say, multi-tasking is beyond me. I read one book at a time all the way through. If I'm reviewing the… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
A reviewer's lot is not always an easy one. I can remember flogging myself to finish Harold Brodkey's 'The Runaway Soul' despite… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
People who've read my reviews know my tastes, know how I approach a book, know my background. I can write with believable… — Michael Dirda 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 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 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 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 Copy Share Image
“I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets, and enjoy seeing rows of hardcovers on my… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
“Despite the rising popularity of the downloadable e-text, I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets,… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Many readers simply can't stomach fantasy. They immediately picture elves with broadswords or mighty-thewed barbarians with battle axes, seeking the bejeweled Coronet… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
“I like first editions, though I’ll sometimes settle for a later printing if it’s within a year or two of the book’s… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Most scholarly books we read for the information or insight they contain. But some we return to simply for the pleasure of… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
I long ago ran out of bookshelf space and so, like a museum with its art, simply rotate my books from the… — 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 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 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 Copy Share Image
Young people looking for adventure fiction now generally turn to fantasy, but for those of a certain age, the spy thriller has… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
For years, I meant to read 'Arabian Sands', Wilfred Thesiger's account of two punishing camel journeys during the late 1940s across Southern… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Best selling authors are always worth listening to, even if you choose to ignore their advice. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
I think of my own work as part of a decades-long conversation about books and reading with people I will mainly never… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Books don't only furnish a room: they also make the best holiday gifts. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Books can be a source of solace, but I see them mainly as a source of pleasure, personal as well as esthetic. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Since I make my living as a literary journalist, not a book scout, I spend inordinate amounts of time either reading or… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Mentoring is the last refuge of the older artist. With luck, disciples will keep one's books in print, one's reputation alive. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
No matter how beautiful the paper, artwork, printing, and binding, I'm seldom drawn to a book unless it's by a writer I… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Not all of E. Nesbit's children's books are fantasies, but even the most realistic somehow seem magical. In her holiday world, nobody… — 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 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
My gift, if that's not too grandiose a term, is one for describing novels, biographies, and works of history in such a… — Michael Dirda 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
Nearly all the writing of our time is likely to disappear in a hundred years. Certainly most readers - and nearly all critics -… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
I sometimes lie awake at night and try to imagine what would be the best period in history to spend one's seventy-odd years. — 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'. Like them,… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
The goal of a just society should be to provide satisfying work with a living wage to all its citizens. — 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 du coeur… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
“Books, by their very nature and variety, help us grow in empathy for others, in tolerance and awareness. But they should increase our skepticism… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
My gift, if that's not too grandiose a term, is one for describing novels, biographies, and works of history in such a way that… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of emotion, content… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
My wife tells me I should check out 'Downton Abbey', but I gather that series might be almost too intense for my temperate nature. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
A reviewer's lot is not always an easy one. I can remember flogging myself to finish Harold Brodkey's 'The Runaway Soul' despite the novel's… — 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 tougher job.… — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
From the late 19th to the early 20th century, the December issue of almost any general-interest magazine regularly featured a holiday horror or two. — Michael Dirda Copy Share Image
![“Nearly all the writing of our time is likely to disappear in a hundred years. Certainly most readers - and nearly all critics - feel that [Kurt] Vonnegut started to repeat himself, to grow increasingly self-indulgent and meandering, and to sometimes just blather in his later work. But his books up…” quote by Michael Dirda](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/ed7/michael-dirda-3414_1960s_nearly-all-the-writing-of-our-time-is-li_13506.jpg)
