All Joseph Epstein Quotes
- If geniuses can sometimes make mistakes, cannot the rest of us on occasion be geniuses? Genius
- I know how deeply slothful I am. Deeply
- I know how many days in which I have just answered e-mail, had three phone calls and a two hour lunch. Poof, gone. They are… Answered
- Within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live. Choicelessness
- While reading writers of great formulatory power — Henry James, Santayana, Proust — I find I can scarcely get through a page without having to… Brilliance
- A writer can get into a vast deal of trouble through misquotation. If you ever want to receive lots of mail, I recommend you get… Deal
- Someone — Cyril Connolly? Ezra Pound? — once said that anything that can be read twice is literature; I would say that anything that bears… Bears
- For me writing is foremost a mode of thinking and when it works well, an act of discovery Act
- The decisive moment in the defeat of upper class, capital-S, Society may have come when, in newspapers all over the nation, what used to be… All
- I think the story is my form. Form
- I know from the middle distance I give off the look of being prolific, which is a funny compliment to receive. Compliment
- I am married to someone I love. Funny
- I have myself always been terrified of plagiarism - of being accused of it, that is. Every writer is a thief, though some of us… Accused
- We do not choose to be born.We do not--most of us, choose to die, or the times or conditions of our death. But within all… Adrift
- Not to like ice cream is to show oneself uninterested in food. Cream
- The pleasure of jogging and running is rather like that of wearing a fur coat in Texas in August: the true joy comes in being… Able
- The reason 'closure' is a cliche is that it is used too often, too imprecisely, and doesn't in any case reflect reality. In reality, such… Achieved
- We use books like mirrors, gazing into them only to discover ourselves. Book
- I believe it was Gayelord Hauser, the nutritionist, who said, 'You are what you eat,' but if you happen to be an intellectual, you are… Believe
- Courage is nine-tenths context. What is courageous in one setting can be foolhardy in another and even cowardly in a third. Context
- We know the ideal isn't where the action is. Action