black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Writing doesn’t come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency

Adam Gopnik

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
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
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
Leafing through Forbes or Fortune [magazine]s is like reading the operating manual of a strangely sanctimonious pirate ship
ADAM GOPNIK

Forbes Leafing Magazine Manual Operating Pirate Reading Stranger
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
The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life.
ADAM GOPNIK

Brutality Country Life Moral Scale Scandal
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
I think is the core of what it means to live a civilised life.
ADAM GOPNIK

Civilised Core Life Live Mean Think Thinking
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
All tastes have the quality of being in some way artificial and invented. The secret of life is to have enough detachment from your tastes and your values to see that they are a little bit absurd.
ADAM GOPNIK

Artificial Good Invented Little Quality Secret Taste
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Coffee Country Institution Respect Terrible Traditional Trying
The future will be like the past, in the sense that, no matter how amazing or technologically advanced a society becomes
ADAM GOPNIK

Advantage Amazing Desire Future Loyalty Matter Past Sense Technologically
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
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Absence Bug Decor Essential Mind Missing Pun
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Beautiful Guy Handsome Impresses Intellect Man Mind Woman Work

Writing doesn’t come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Writing doesn’t come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Adam Gopnik Quotes