black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

This alchemy, of self-absorption into shared experience, is the alchemy of all literature.

Adam Gopnik

The trick and the trap and the horror is not faith, Scott. I don’t think the trap and the horror is fanaticism.
ADAM GOPNIK

Faith Fanaticism Horror People Trap Trick
It’s really our relief at no longer having to do things we were never good at doing in the first place – relief at never again having to dissect a frog or memorize the periodic table.
ADAM GOPNIK

Again Dissect Doing First Frog Longer. Thing Memorize never Periodic Place relief Table
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
ADAM GOPNIK

Emotional Fact Intensity Look People Photography Sleep
Men choose Hamlet because every man sees himself as a disinherited monarch. .
ADAM GOPNIK

Choose Crazy Day Disinherited Every Man Monarch Thinking Woman
Tomorrow may be a bit better than today; and, after all, you have to have a little faith in people-doesn’t diminish the glamour that clings to the man who turned the question over and look at it, elegantly, upside down.
ADAM GOPNIK

After All Better Cling Diminish Down Elegantly Faith Glamour Man People Question Today Tomorrow Upside
A good analogy [Charlie Hebdo] in lots of ways is “South Park” – the hugely popular American cartoon show – and the things that the “South Park” creators have created, like “The Book Of Mormon,” the Broadway musical.
ADAM GOPNIK

Analogy Book Cartoon Charlie Hebdo Country Good Musical Popular South Park
Love, like light, is a thing that is enacted better than defined: we know it afterward by the traces it leaves on paper.
ADAM GOPNIK

Afterward Better Defined Enacted Know Leave Light Love Paper Trace
Fanaticism comes in as many flavors as there are human beings.
ADAM GOPNIK

Come Fanaticism Flavor Human Being Many
That, you could conclude mordantly, is the real soundtrack of our time: the amplification of the self-evident toward the creation of paralyzing, preëmptive paranoia.
ADAM GOPNIK

Amplification Creation Evident Mordantly Paralyzing Paranoia Preëmptive Real Self Soundtrack Towards
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Bending Drawing Instinct Instruction Player Risk Thing Those Uneasy
Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind of mediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum
ADAM GOPNIK

Believe Country Encumbered Hangover Mediaeval Monarchy Reality
You can’t have a decent food culture without a decent coffee culture: the two things grow up together.
ADAM GOPNIK

Coffee Culture Decent Food Grow Growing Together Up
There are as many attitudes to cooking as there are people cooking, of course, but I do think that cooking guys tend
ADAM GOPNIK

Attitude Cooking Course Decent Party People Professional Simplicity Thinking
The light in your eyes shines because of the longing in your soul. And the longing in your souls rises because you are looking for the lost half minute.
ADAM GOPNIK

Eye Half Light Longing Looking Lost Minute Rise Shine Soul
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Attacked Believe Possible Problem Right Side Something Trust
Of all the unexpected things in contemporary literature, this is among the oddest: that kids have an inordinate appetite for very long, very tricky, very strange books about places that don’t exist…
ADAM GOPNIK

Book Contemporary Kid Knowledge Literature Long Oddest Unexpected

This alchemy, of self-absorption into shared experience, is the alchemy of all literature.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

This alchemy, of self-absorption into shared experience, is the alchemy of all literature.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Adam Gopnik Quotes