Adam Gopnik Quotes, Writing Quotes, Joy 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Writing Quotes , Joy 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Past Quotes , Listening Quotes

Writing is the process of finding something to distract you from writing, and of all the helpful distractions - adultery, alcohol and acedia, all of which aided our writing fathers - none can equal the Internet.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Father Quotes , Writing Quotes

If we are willing to act violently in pursuit of a peripheral interest, everyone can be certain that, when a vital interest is at stake, we will be still more violent. 'Credibility' is defined as the willingness to kill a lot of people now for a not very good cause to assure the world that we'll kill a lot more people if we can find a better one.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , People Quotes , World Quotes

When handsome men or beautiful women take up the work of the intellect, it impresses us because we know they could have chosen other paths to being impressive; that they chose the path of the mind suggests that there is on it something more worthwhile than a circuitous route to the good things that the good-looking get just by showing up.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Beautiful Quotes , Men 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

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Player Quotes , Drawing Quotes

... a fact about photography: we can look at people's faces in photographs with an intensity and intimacy that in life we normally only reserve for extreme emotional states - for a first look at someone we may sleep with, or a last look at someone we love.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Photography Quotes , Sleep 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

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Heart Quotes , Hands Quotes

Good editorial writing has less to do with winning an argument, since the other side is mostly not listening, than with telling the guys on your side how they ought to sound when they’re arguing.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Writing Quotes , Winning 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

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Two Quotes

The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Brutality Quotes , Scandal 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

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Long Quotes , World 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.

6 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Adam Gopnik Quotes , Mind Quotes , Essentials Quotes