Adam Gopnik Quotes, America Quotes, People Quotes

Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America-more than six million-than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , America Quotes , People Quotes

There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Two Quotes

New York has always been a place where it is possible to have memories without the experience that conventionally precede them.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , New York Quotes

American long for a closed society in which everything can be bought, where laborers are either hidden away or dressed up as nonhumans, so as not to be disconcerting. This place is called Disney World

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Long Quotes , World Quotes

Writing doesn't come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency, I think - the more sentences you write, the more sentences you have written, if that slightly Zen confection makes any sense.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Writing Quotes , Thinking Quotes

The coffee shop is a great New York institution, but it has terrible coffee. And the more traditional coffee shops are trying to catch up with more sophisticated coffee drinkers.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , New York Quotes , Coffee Quotes

Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind of mediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum; the reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution - perhaps the first modern political institution.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Hangover Quotes , Believe Quotes

If you're being attacked from all sides, it's possible you're doing something right; it's also possible that you are doing everything wrong.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Sides Quotes

The past is so often unknowable not because it is befogged now but because it was befogged then, too, back when it was still the present. If we had been there listening, we still might not have been able to determine exactly what Stanton said. All we know for sure is that everyone was weeping, and the room was full.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Past Quotes , Listening Quotes

I don't miss the obligation to be opinionated, but I do regret the chance to share a joy.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Regret Quotes , Joy Quotes

Paris, on the other hand, looked exactly as it was supposed to look. It wore its heart on its sleeve, and the strange thing was that the heart it wore so openly was in other ways so closed-mysterious, uninviting.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Heart Quotes , Hands Quotes

Lose your schematic conventions by finding some surprising symbol or shape in the welter of shades, and draw that.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Drawing Quotes , Shapes Quotes

Someone once said that the joy is not in writing but in having written. I can't say I find that to be true, though I understand the sentiment.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Writing Quotes , Joy Quotes

Often the block [in writing] comes from the wall of words that keep out the simplicity of sense.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Wall Quotes , Block Quotes

Drawing is one of those things which sit on the uneasy bending line between instinct and instruction, where seeming perversity eventually trumps pleasure as the card players and the kibitzers interact and new thrills are sought.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Player Quotes , Drawing Quotes

I don't think there's any question journalists have become targets, but then I think that - that anyone who tries to practice liberty becomes a target of fanatics.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Practice Quotes

Wit and puns aren't just décor in the mind; they're essential signs that the mind knows it's on, recognizes its own software, can spot the bugs in its own program.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Mind Quotes , Essentials Quotes

The World Series is played in my doubtless too-nostalgic imagination in some kind of autumn afternoon light, and seeing it exclusively in the bitter chill of midnight breaks the spell of even the best of games.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Autumn Quotes , Light Quotes

Fanaticism comes in as many flavors as there are human beings.

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Flavor Quotes , Humans Quotes

Daniel Levitin takes the most sophisticated ideas that exist about the brain and mind, applies them to the most emotionally direct art we have, our songs, and makes beautiful music of the two together.

6 years ago

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Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Song Quotes