High standards generally -- about workmanship and creation of objects, about what is owed in friendship, about the quality of art and much else -- far from being snobbish, are required to maintain decency in life. — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
I am basically a complainer and all the grounds for complaint have been swept out from under me. — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
I was recently asked what it takes to become a writer. Three things, I answered: first, one must cultivate incompetence at almost every other… — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
“To be in the middle of composing a book is almost always to feel oneself in a state of confusion, doubt and mental imprisonment....” — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
We who are quotatious are never truly alone, but always hear the cheerful flow of remarks made by dead writers so much more intelligent… — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
Culture means, I think, that you have widened your experience enough through reading and through being a little bit thoughtful about these things that… — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
Food has it over sex for variety. Hedonistically, gustatory possibilities are much broader than copulatory ones. — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
“Getting rid of most of my personal library comported nicely with my longheld fantasy of traveling light, existing with minimal encumbrances, living simply. A… — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
Envy is never general, but always very particular - at least envy of the kind one feels strongly. — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
Many moons ago dictionaries of quotations may have been less needed than they are today. In those good/bad old days, people walked around with… — Joseph Epstein Copy Share Image
