“Carpe diem' doesn't mean seize the day--it means something gentler and more sensible. 'Carpe diem' means pluck the day. Carpe, pluck. Seize the day would be "cape diem," if my school Latin servies. No R. Very different piece of advice.… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
I did not know that the planning for biological and chemical warfare was so widespread in England, and even in France before France fell.… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
Just as the people who lived through the Second World War thought different things on different days, I think everybody who goes through that… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
There's something paralyzing about being a writer that you have to escape. I don't want to think of myself as a guy who's written… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
The great thing about novels is that you can be as unshy as you want to be. I'm very polite in person. I don't… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
“Why are things beautiful? I don´t know. That´s a good question. Isn´t it pleasing when you ask a question of a person, a teacher,… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
I'm suspicious of full-replacement programs - that is, pronouncements that one way of doing something will entirely supplant another, and that in fact we… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
Printed books usually outlive bookstores and the publishers who brought them out. They sit around, demanding nothing, for decades. That's one of their nicest… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
“The neurons that do expire are the ones that made imitation possible. When you are capable of skillful imitation, the sweep of choices before… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
What's somewhat puzzling is that Churchill himself knew what the reaction would be to any sort of aerial attack on cities, because in 1938… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
As soon as you start doing that - changing things - it seems self-evident to me that you've entered the world of make-believe. If… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
I don't do all that well in the writerly world. I'm happier being outside the flow. — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
E.B. White's essays are the best things I've read about Maine - especially the one in which he's not sure if he can go… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
“The fact that we had independently decided to sweep our apartments on that Sunday afternoon after spending the weekend together, I took as a… — Nicholson Baker Copy Share Image
