--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding…" description: "\"I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims t..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cee/harold-brodkey-14369_admire_i-distrust-summaries-any-kind-of-gliding_2151326.png" --- # I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time… ![“I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but is obviously calk, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to…” quote by Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cee/harold-brodkey-14369_admire_i-distrust-summaries-any-kind-of-gliding_2151326.png) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cee/harold-brodkey-14369_admire_i-distrust-summaries-any-kind-of-gliding_2151326.png) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/cee/harold-brodkey-14369_admire_i-distrust-summaries-any-kind-of-gliding_2151326.png) > “I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but is obviously calk, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to re-enter and be riven. ... I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of the event.” [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. The quote warns against overconfidence in summarizing life; true understanding comes from humility and emotional honesty, not detached analysis. **In simple terms:** Understanding requires humility, not detached summaries. Key Takeaway Embrace vulnerability when recalling events. Themes humility truth emotional honesty storytelling Mood reflective introspective Type philosophical literary When to use this quote - personal memoir writing - historical analysis - therapeutic journaling Key Concepts existentialism psychology literary criticism Questions to Reflect On - How does humility change your perception of memory? - When is a summary sufficient? A Different Perspective It may overlook the value of concise communication in some contexts. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Admire](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/admire/) [Authority](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/authority/) [Claims](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/claims/) [Crafts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/crafts/) [Distrust](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/distrust/) [Distrust Summaries](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/distrust-summaries-3468310/) [Emotion](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/emotion/) [Emotion Recollected](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/emotion-recollected-1168415/) [Events](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/events/) [Fool](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/fool/) [Fronts](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/fronts/) [Gliding](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/gliding/) [Kind](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/kind/) [Knees](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/knees/) [Liars](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/liars/) [Peace](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/peace/) [Recollect](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/recollect/) [Recollected](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/recollected-868356/) [Rough times](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/rough-times/) [Summary](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/summary/) [Thinking](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/thinking/) [Time](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/time/) [Tranquility](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/tranquility/) [Tremble Recollect](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/tremble-recollect-3468309/) [Writing](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/writing/) ## Related quotes > [“I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/i-distrust-summaries-any-kind-of-gliding-through-time-any-too-great-a/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [Poetry is emotion recollected in tranquillity.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/william-wordsworth/poetry-is-emotion-recollected-in-tranquillity/) [William Wordsworth](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/william-wordsworth/) > [“You never stopped thinking of yourself as a writer biding his time in the Department of Factual Verification. But between the job and the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/jay-mcinerney/you-never-stopped-thinking-of-yourself-as-a-writer-biding-his-time-in/) [Jay McInerney](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jay-mcinerney/) > [We must believe that "emotion recollected in tranquillity" is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/t-s-eliot/we-must-believe-that-emotion-recollected-in-tranquillity-is-an/) [T. S. Eliot](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/t-s-eliot/) > [“Writing creates something new: an “art emotion,” i.e., an image of emotion, an illusion of emotion, which exists only in the context of the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rami-shapiro/writing-creates-something-new-an-art-emotion-i-e-an-image-of-emotion/) [Rami Shapiro](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rami-shapiro/) > [A lot of poems seem, in some sense, to pull the outside world into the interior. 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Everything is stored up and one never knows what comes…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rosamond-lehmann/a-writer-works-from-the-material-she-has-but-it-comes-from-the/) [Rosamond Lehmann](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rosamond-lehmann/) > [In this way, if you continue all the time in the way we have described from the beginning, it will become as easy and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/albertus-magnus/in-this-way-if-you-continue-all-the-time-in-the-way-we-have-described/) [Albertus Magnus](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/albertus-magnus/) > [Life was an uncertain thing, and there were some moments one wished to remember, to imprint upon one's mind that the memory might be…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/cassandra-clare/life-was-an-uncertain-thing-and-there-were-some-moments-one-wished-to-2/) [Cassandra Clare](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/cassandra-clare/) > [The recollected go forth to lives of renunciation. They take no pleasure in a fixed abode. Like wild swans abandoning a pool, they leave…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/gautama-buddha/the-recollected-go-forth-to-lives-of-renunciation-they-take-no/) [Gautama Buddha](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/gautama-buddha/) > [“Life was an uncertain thing, and there were some moments one wished to remember, to imprint upone one's mind that the memory might be…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/cassandra-clare/life-was-an-uncertain-thing-and-there-were-some-moments-one-wished-to/) [Cassandra Clare](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/cassandra-clare/) > [A thousand recollected lives were passing through her, a thousand stories - of love and work, of parents and children, of duty and joy…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/justin-cronin/a-thousand-recollected-lives-were-passing-through-her-a-thousand/) [Justin Cronin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/justin-cronin/) > [If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/william-james/if-we-remembered-everything-we-should-on-most-occasions-be-as-ill-off/) [William James](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/william-james/) > [“Joy recollected is indeed no longer the emotion itself.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/adam-mcomber/joy-recollected-is-indeed-no-longer-the-emotion-itself/) [Adam McOmber](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/adam-mcomber/) ## More by Harold Brodkey > [Being ill like this combines shock - this time I will die - with a pain and agony that are unfamiliar, that wrench me…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/being-ill-like-this-combines-shock-this-time-i-will-die-with-a-pain/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [“I figured I had kept her from being too depressed after fucking--it's hard for a girl with any force in her and any brains…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/i-figured-i-had-kept-her-from-being-too-depressed-after-fucking-it-s/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [I was always crazy about New York, dependent on it, scared of it - well, it is dangerous - but beyond that there was…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/i-was-always-crazy-about-new-york-dependent-on-it-scared-of-it-well/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [In our opposed forms of loneliness and self-recognition and recognition of the other, we touched each other often as we spoke; and on shore…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/in-our-opposed-forms-of-loneliness-and-self-recognition-and/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [It is death that goes down to the center of the earth, the great burial church the earth is, and then to the curved…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/it-is-death-that-goes-down-to-the-center-of-the-earth-the-great/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [“Reading is an intimate act, perhaps more intimate than any other human act. I say that because of the prolonged (or intense) exposure of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/reading-is-an-intimate-act-perhaps-more-intimate-than-any-other-human/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [“There is a certain shade of red brick--a dark, almost melodious red, sombre and riddled with blue--that is my childhood in St.Louis. Not the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/there-is-a-certain-shade-of-red-brick-a-dark-almost-melodious-red/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [I'm sixty-two, and it's ecological sense to die while you're still productive, die and clear a space for others, old and young.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/i-m-sixty-two-and-it-s-ecological-sense-to-die-while-you-re-still/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [It is like visiting one's funeral, like visiting loss in its purest and most monumental form, this wild darkness, which is not only unknown…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/it-is-like-visiting-one-s-funeral-like-visiting-loss-in-its-purest/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [In New York one lives in the moment rather more than Socrates advised, so that at a party or alone in your room it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/in-new-york-one-lives-in-the-moment-rather-more-than-socrates-advised/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [I have thousands of opinions still - but that is down from millions - and, as always, I know nothing.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/i-have-thousands-of-opinions-still-but-that-is-down-from-millions-and/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [Almost the first thing I did when I became ill was to buy a truly good television set.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/almost-the-first-thing-i-did-when-i-became-ill-was-to-buy-a-truly/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [I am startled when people are themselves and are not my thoughts of them.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/i-am-startled-when-people-are-themselves-and-are-not-my-thoughts-of/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [You really can’t write unless you read. You have to know what the game is all about.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/you-really-can-t-write-unless-you-read-you-have-to-know-what-the-game/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) > [I often thought men stank of rage; it is why I preferred women, and homosexuals.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/harold-brodkey/i-often-thought-men-stank-of-rage-it-is-why-i-preferred-women-and/) [Harold Brodkey](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) [Explore all 47 Harold Brodkey quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/harold-brodkey/) ## More Admire quotes > [Everyone will admire you when you do well. What a horrible thing to do to someone.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/frederick-lenz/everyone-will-admire-you-when-you-do-well-what-a-horrible-thing-to-do/) [Frederick Lenz](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/frederick-lenz/) > [I admire Serena Williams, because, I mean, who doesn't admire Serena Williams?](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/johanna-konta/i-admire-serena-williams-because-i-mean-who-doesn-t-admire-serena/) [Johanna Konta](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/johanna-konta/) > [How proud I am to be compared to Oprah. I really admire her. She's a minority woman and she's done all this by herself...…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/cristina-saralegui/how-proud-i-am-to-be-compared-to-oprah-i-really-admire-her-she-s-a/) [Cristina Saralegui](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/cristina-saralegui/) > [I admire President Obama's ability to trust strangers.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/greg-gutfeld/i-admire-president-obama-s-ability-to-trust-strangers/) [Greg Gutfeld](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/greg-gutfeld/) > [I really admire people's interactions with technology that aren't tech-centric but use it as a tool.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/caroline-polachek/i-really-admire-people-s-interactions-with-technology-that-aren-t/) [Caroline Polachek](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/caroline-polachek/) > [During my first years in the Sierra, I was ever calling on everybody within reach to admire them, but I found no one half…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/john-muir/during-my-first-years-in-the-sierra-i-was-ever-calling-on-everybody/) [John Muir](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/john-muir/) > [Shaw's works make me admire the magnificent tolerance and broadmindedness of the english.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/james-joyce/shaw-s-works-make-me-admire-the-magnificent-tolerance-and/) [James Joyce](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/james-joyce/) > [It could be my British need for discipline that makes me admire the American appetite for freedom and passion.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/steve-winwood/it-could-be-my-british-need-for-discipline-that-makes-me-admire-the/) [Steve Winwood](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/steve-winwood/) > [I believe in a world where there are no heroes, and I've read and know humanity a lot. 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It's…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/whit-stillman/i-think-it-s-really-good-and-helpful-to-have-the-people-you-most/) [Whit Stillman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/whit-stillman/) > [Part of what we admire about a painting or a piece of music is the order which the artist has imposed upon what would…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/anthony-storr/part-of-what-we-admire-about-a-painting-or-a-piece-of-music-is-the/) [Anthony Storr](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/anthony-storr/) > [I respect and admire the Premier League.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ronald-koeman/i-respect-and-admire-the-premier-league/) [Ronald Koeman](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ronald-koeman/) > [“Admire and appreciate your man and he will be happy on your side”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/linda-alfiori/admire-and-appreciate-your-man-and-he-will-be-happy-on-your-side/) [Linda Alfiori](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/linda-alfiori/) > [“The thing I admire most about you is no matter how hard, or how much the world has tried to beat you, break you,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/nikita-gill/the-thing-i-admire-most-about-you-is-no-matter-how-hard-or-how-much/) [Nikita Gill](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/nikita-gill/) [Browse all 2,369 Admire quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/admire/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but is obviously calk, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. 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