Anne Fadiman

You can miss a lot by sticking to the point.

— Anne Fadiman

“we expect a wine of quality to demand something from us.”

— Anne Fadiman

Pen-bereavement is a serious matter.

— Anne Fadiman

Our view of reality is only a view, not reality itself.

— Anne Fadiman

I have never been able to resist a book about books.

— Anne Fadiman

“Bordeaux are named after châteaux. Castles.”

— Anne Fadiman

Americans admire success. Englishmen admire heroic failure

— Anne Fadiman

“Shakespeare was an anti-Semite,”

— Anne Fadiman

If the soul cannot find its jacket. it is condemned to an eternity of wandering--naked and alone

— Anne Fadiman

“I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet.”

— Anne Fadiman

When I write after dark", observed Cyril Connolly, "the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose

— Anne Fadiman

“wine stores should organize their bottles not by origin and varietal but by alcohol content and intensity of flavor,”

— Anne Fadiman

Reading aloud means no skipping, no skimming, no cutting to the chase.

— Anne Fadiman

“Their tastes change not because their palates improve but because they deteriorate.”

— Anne Fadiman

It is a grave error to assume that ice cream consumption requires hot weather.

— Anne Fadiman

“he never had fewer than seven jobs and at one point had thirteen.”

— Anne Fadiman

“her father had built from ax-hewn planks thatched with bamboo and grass. The floor was dirt, but it was clean. Her mother,…

— Anne Fadiman

When I visit a new bookstore, I demand cleanliness, computer monitors, and rigorous alphabetization. When I visit a secondhand bookstore, I prefer…

— Anne Fadiman

“We spread our sleeping bags on the snow and crawled inside. The vantage point was dizzying. It was impossible to tell whether…

— Anne Fadiman

It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious completely unrelated…

— Anne Fadiman

“The Hmong never had any interest in ruling over the Chinese or anyone else; they wanted merely to be left alone, which,…

— Anne Fadiman

The most important thing when starting out with essay writing is to find a voice with which you're comfortable. You need to…

— Anne Fadiman

The problem with the literary hothouse of New York City is that people spend so much time looking in the mirror. They…

— Anne Fadiman

One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely…

— Anne Fadiman

I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet. I…

— Anne Fadiman

“A sponsoring pastor in Minnesota told a local newspaper, “It would be wicked to just bring them over and feed and clothe…

— Anne Fadiman

Some friends of theirs had rented their house for several months to an interior decorator. When they returned, they discovered that their…

— Anne Fadiman

“One night when I was pregnant with Henry, I lay in bed thinking for some reason, about "Treasure Island." I realized that…

— Anne Fadiman

When the Irish novelist John McGahern was a child, his sisters unlaced and removed one of his shoes while he was reading.…

— Anne Fadiman

Some day, as soon as a book is printed it will be simultaneously put into digital form. That will be a wonderful…

— Anne Fadiman

I am very grateful to the electronic world for making my life easier, but there is something about holding a book -…

— Anne Fadiman

Muses are fickle, and many a writer, peering into the voice, has escaped paralysis by ascribing the creative responsibility to a talisman:…

— Anne Fadiman

Something amazing happens when the rest of the world is sleeping. I am glued to my chair. I forget that I ever…

— Anne Fadiman

“In Minneapolis, tires were slashed and windows smashed. A high school student getting off a bus was hit in the face and…

— Anne Fadiman

“It's not that I think that computers don't have their place, but surely their place is not in bed, which is my…

— Anne Fadiman

“The Procrustean bed. . .suggests itself with dispiriting aptness as a metaphor for the Culture Wars, right down to the blandishments with…

— Anne Fadiman

My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit…

— Anne Fadiman

“I have never met a miserly wine lover.”

— Anne Fadiman

“Benjamin Franklin wrote that he would like to be embalmed in a cask of Madeira”

— Anne Fadiman

For me, literature is a way of enlarging myself by learning about people who are not like me.

— Anne Fadiman