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After all, spinning is its own reward. There wouldn’t be carousels if it weren’t so.

Adam Gopnik

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
For a first look at someone we may sleep with, or a last look at someone we love.
ADAM GOPNIK

Care First Last Look Love Sleep Someone Understand
You can stand up and tell a story that is made entirely, embarrassingly, of “I’s,” and a listening audience somehow turns each “I” into a “me.”
ADAM GOPNIK

Childbirth Entirely Friendship Made Marriage Stand Story Strangest Tell
I don’t miss the obligation to be opinionated, but I do regret the chance to share a joy.
ADAM GOPNIK

Chance Joy Miss Missing Obligation Opinionated Regret Share
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
Would mistrust a poetry critic who couldn’t produce a rhyming couplet. Could one write about art without knowing how to draw?
ADAM GOPNIK

Draw Knowing Mistrust Poetry Produce Rhythm
If I were a devout Mormon, I would be offended by a lot of things that go on in “The Book Of Mormon,” right?
ADAM GOPNIK

Book Devout Go Inspire Mormon Offered Thing
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Correctional Country Fact Height More People Supervision Understand
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Closed Country Dressed Everything Laborer Long Society World
That any troubles are simple misunderstandings, consequent on your not yet having spoken English loudly enough.
ADAM GOPNIK

Consequent English Loudly Misunderstanding Simply Spoken Trouble
It mocks mercilessly the pretensions to truth of Mormonism and the pretensions to virtue of Mormon missionaries.
ADAM GOPNIK

Mercilessly Missionaries Mock Mormonism Pretension Truth Virtue
Sometimes having a good time can be the outward evidence of a deep re-thinking.
ADAM GOPNIK

Deep Deeply Evidence Good Outward Sometimes Think Thinking Time
The sin of capitalism, perhaps, is to make wants feel like needs, to give to simple silly stuff the urgency of near-physical necessity: I must have it.
ADAM GOPNIK

Capitalism Feel Giving Make Need Perhaps Silly Simple Sin Stuff
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
What we eat is the one simplest way to declare who we are – the table reflects our values with a clarity that few other theaters of human behaviour posses.
ADAM GOPNIK

Behaviour Clarity Declare Emotion Human Reflect Simplest Table Value Way
Of having seen something large and having found the right words to say it small, small enough to enter an individual mind so that the strong ideas of what the words are saying sound like sweet reason.
ADAM GOPNIK

Enter Found Individual Like Mind Reason Right Small Something Sound
I am a guilty party here – to take, or get, undue credit for domestic virtue, when in truth cooking is the most painless and, in its ways, ostentatious of the domestic chores.
ADAM GOPNIK

Cooking Domestic Guilty Here Most Painless Party Take Truth Undue Virtue
I think if journalists start doing that then they won’t be practicing journalism. If satirists start doing that then they won’t be practicing satire.
ADAM GOPNIK

Doing Journalism Journalist Practice Practising Satire Satirist Start
The relentless note of incipient hysteria, the invitation to panic, the ungrounded scenarios
ADAM GOPNIK

Fear Hysteria Incipient Invitation Note Real Relentless Scenarios Self Ungrounded
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 blankness invites scribbling on, mental drawing , and the best feeling I know – apart from the more obvious sensual ones – is the feeling of putting down the first thought and seeing it turn into symbols.
ADAM GOPNIK

Best Blackness Drawing Feeling Invite Know Mental Obvious One Scribbling Sensual Symbol
Nothing in a graduate degree in art history prepares you for the eloquence of the eraser.
ADAM GOPNIK

Art Degree Education Eloquence Eraser Graduate History Nothing Prepare
In an age of malice and bad faith on many sides, I reread White or Thurber or Mitchell and am reminded again that good writing is done, as I said in my elegy for Salinger, with an active eye and ear and an ardent heart, and in no other way.
ADAM GOPNIK

Age Bad Country Eye Faith Good Heart Malice People Reread Thurber Working Writing
Something is missing, we think. And so we long for the thing we’ve missed and can’t name, and out of that wanting – well, everything else rises, good and bad.
ADAM GOPNIK

Bad Good MIssed Missing Name Out Sometimes Think Wanting Well
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
In bookstores, my stuff is usually filed in the out-of-the-way, additional interest sections.
ADAM GOPNIK

Additional Bookstore Field Interest Out Stuff Usually Way
Merely that you start off with ideas buzzing around in your head, and then you try to give them the simpler, more graceful shape, of a feeling that a reader might share.
ADAM GOPNIK

Buzz Buzzing Feeling Give Giving Head Idea Merely Start Try

After all, spinning is its own reward. There wouldn’t be carousels if it weren’t so.

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After all, spinning is its own reward. There wouldn’t be carousels if it weren’t so.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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