Anne Fadiman Quotes

Quotes about:

• If you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs.

  Anne Fadiman

  Book, Writing, Sleep

  49 Copy quote

• My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading.

  Anne Fadiman

  Daughter, Children, Book

  38 Copy quote

• I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one.

  Anne Fadiman

  Weather, Interesting, Borders

  "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down". Book by Anne Fadiman, 2012.

  16 Copy quote

• In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar.

  Anne Fadiman

  Book, Views, Nineteen

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.148, Macmillan

  24 Copy quote

• Our view of reality is only a view, not reality itself.

  Anne Fadiman

  Reality, Views

  Anne Fadiman (1998). “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures”, p.276, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• When I visit a new bookstore, I demand cleanliness, computer monitors, and rigorous alphabetization. When I visit a secondhand bookstore, I prefer indifferent housekeeping, sleeping cats, and sufficient organizational chaos.

  Anne Fadiman

  Sleep, Cat, Bookstores

  17 Copy quote

• It is a grave error to assume that ice cream consumption requires hot weather.

  Anne Fadiman

  Errors, Ice Cream, Weather

  Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.49, Macmillan

  10 Copy quote

• Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves.

  Anne Fadiman

  Book, Stories, Refrigerators

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.15, Macmillan

  10 Copy quote

• It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.

  Anne Fadiman

  Long, Library, Belief

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.21, Macmillan

  13 Copy quote

• The action most worth watching is not at the center of things, but where edges meet.

  Anne Fadiman

  Action, Shoreline, Edges

  Anne Fadiman (1998). “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures”, p.8, Macmillan

  10 Copy quote

• Some friends of theirs had rented their house for several months to an interior decorator. When they returned, they discovered that their entire library had been reorganized by color and size. Shortly thereafter, the decorator met with a fatal automobile accident. I confess that when this story was told, everyone around the dinner table concurred that justice had been served.

  Anne Fadiman

  Color, Justice, House

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.5, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Anyone who doubts that caffeine is a drug should read some of the prose composed under its influence.

  Anne Fadiman

  Drug, Doubt, Influence

  Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.171, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely dormant and that the old joys can re emerge fresh and new and in a completely different form.

  Anne Fadiman

  Children, Parenting, Thinking

  Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.27, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• I can think of few better ways to introduce a child to books than to let her stack them, upend them, rearrange them, and get her fingerprints all over them.

  Anne Fadiman

  Children, Book, Thinking

  15 Copy quote

• I have never been able to resist a book about books.

  Anne Fadiman

  Book, Able

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.139, Macmillan

  6 Copy quote

• You can miss a lot by sticking to the point.

  Anne Fadiman

  Missing

  Anne Fadiman (1998). “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures”, p.13, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Pen-bereavement is a serious matter.

  Anne Fadiman

  Bereavement, Matter, Serious

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.89, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• Reading aloud means no skipping, no skimming, no cutting to the chase.

  Anne Fadiman

  Reading, Mean, Cutting

  Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.137, Macmillan

  7 Copy quote

• When I write after dark", observed Cyril Connolly, "the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose

  Anne Fadiman

  Writing, Dark, Purple

  Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.64, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights [...] a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer.

  Anne Fadiman

  Book, Literature, Copyright

  Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.88, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

• If my father were still writing essays, every full-grown 'girl' would probably be transformed into a'woman'.

  Anne Fadiman

  Girl, Father, Writing

  1998 On her father, Clifton Fadiman, a renowned man-ofletters. In Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.

  4 Copy quote

• Something amazing happens when the rest of the world is sleeping. I am glued to my chair. I forget that I ever wanted to do anything but write. The crowded city, the crowded apartment, and the crowded calendar suddenly seem spacious. Three or four hours pass in a moment; I have no idea what time it is, because I never check the clock. If I chose to listen, I could hear the swish of taxis bound for downtown bars or the soft saxophone riffs that drift from a neighbor's window, but nothing gets through. I am suspended in a sensory deprivation tank, and the very lack of sensation is delicious.

  Anne Fadiman

  Sleep, Writing, Cities

  Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.73, Macmillan

  9 Copy quote

• when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says Private - grownups keep out: a children sprawled on the bed, reading.

  Anne Fadiman

  Children, Book, Reading

  7 Copy quote

• It is a truism of epistolary psychology that, for example, a Christmas thank-you note written on December 26 can say any old thing, but if you wait until February, you are convinced that nothing less than Middlemarch will do.

  Anne Fadiman

  Old Things, Waiting, Psychology

  6 Copy quote

• If the soul cannot find its jacket. it is condemned to an eternity of wandering--naked and alone

  Anne Fadiman

  Soul, Naked, Eternity

  Anne Fadiman (1998). “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures”, p.5, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

Page 1 of 2

← Prev

1

2

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin