Clifton Fadiman Quotes

The Tantrums Of Cloth-headed Celluloid Idols Are Deemed Fit For Grown-up Conversation, While Silence Settles Over Such A Truly Important Matter As Food.

I Think We Must Quote Whenever We Feel That The Allusion Is Interesting Or Helpful Or Amusing.

Being A Child Is In Itself A Profession.

My Main Recollection Is Of The Work I Had To Do In Order To Eat

Seriously, I Do Not Know What To Say Of This Book [ Absalom, Absalom!] Except That It Seem To Point To The Final Blowup Of What Was Once A Remarkable, If Minor, Talent… This Is A Penny Dreadful Tricked Up In Fancy Language And Given A Specious Depth By The Expert Manipulation Of A Series Of Eccentric Technical Tricks. The Characters Have No Magnitude And No Meaning Because They Have No More Reality Than A Mince-pie Nightmare.

I Tried To Use The Questions And Answers As An Armature On Which To Build A Sculpture Of Genuine Conversation

Gertrude Stein Was Masterly In Making Nothing Happen Very Slowly

Reading To Small Children Is A Specialty.

As Between Mileage And Experience Choose Experience.

Liquor Is Not A Necessity. It Is A Means Of Momentarily Sidestepping Necessity.

The Kind Of Poetry To Avoid In The Pretty-pretty Kind That Pleased Our Grandmothers, The Kind That Longfellow And Tennyson, Good Poets At Their Best, Wrote At Their Worst.

One Newspaper A Day Ought To Be Enough For Anyone Who Still Prefers To Retain A Little Mental Balance.