“For time to pass it would have to go somewhere, and where would that be? Time sits. We move, it sits. Sometimes… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
I remember the first time I went to Italy when I was eighteen, I was in Florence and there were all these… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
Writing about the future and the past is less a way of dramatizing change than of showing, by way of contrast, what… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
Some strangers become more important to you than family, maybe because you're not expected to love them. You can leave them whenever… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
If the future, as imagined in literature, is really the present taken to extremes, then the past is also the present, but… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
Remember daydreams? No, of course you don't. How could you? Three new text messages have just arrived, and another three, in a… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
The future of time, of how it's won or lost, endured or enjoyed, expanded or compressed, will depend on how it's valued,… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
There are moments when it frightens us, threatening to expose us as inauthentic. Well, the big-time impostors we read about in literature… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
I've noticed that the few times I've traveled first class myself, you've already got your drink, and your coat has been taken… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
I say 'here's the thing' a lot, both to alert people that I'm about to say something important and to give myself… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
“I sensed that almost all of them knew they didn't have much more time on earth. Maybe this accounted for their willingness… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
“He looked like a being who'd voyaged back through time from a world that had overcome illness, pain, and conflict.” — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
In fourth grade, I learned that reading was serious business, not just a pleasant way to pass the time, and that like… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
Literary dementia seems dated now, but there was a time when a month in the funny farm was as de rigueur for… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
Everyone loves a witch hunt as long as it's someone else's witch being hunted. — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
“I just wasn't ready for his stories. They'd breed with the others I'd heard and hatch new monsters, because there was no such thing… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
It's no accident that most self-help groups use 'anonymous' in their names; to Americans, the first step toward redemption is a ritual wiping out… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
“For time to pass it would have to go somewhere, and where would that be? Time sits. We move, it sits. Sometimes it trembles… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
Once you realize just the sort of glut of books that exists out there, it does become incumbent on you not to add to… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
There are two sides to me. One is the writer. That's a savage person who looks at everything as a story and, you know,… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
I remember the first time I went to Italy when I was eighteen, I was in Florence and there were all these eighteen, nineteen,… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
The idea that Americans favor politicians who either remind them of themselves or can imagine what their selves are like because they too have… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
“Our habit of wishing backward from what is to what might have been is the soft but persistent tapping that cracks the crystal.” — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
Memo to extreme partisans: If you can't bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends? — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
People can be so neglectful of each other and of their own heritage - then death intrudes. Conversations we wish that we'd had earlier… — Walter Kirn Copy Share Image
