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Yet in truth the big question Camus asked was never the Anglo-American liberal one: How can we make the world a little bit better tomorrow?

Adam Gopnik

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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Back Befogged Listening might Often Past Present Still Unknowable
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
The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more.
ADAM GOPNIK

But Easier First More One Second See Time Visible Visitor
We call disasters unimaginable, but all we do is imagine such things. […]
ADAM GOPNIK

Assure Call Disaster Imagine Such Thing Unimaginable
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
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Explore First Goes Journey Kind People Reel Thinking Traveler Two
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
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
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
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
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 overwhelming and underlying desire for something truly terrible to happen so that you could have something really hot to talk about – was still startling.
ADAM GOPNIK

Desire Happen Hot Overwhelming Something Truly Underlying
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
Lose your schematic conventions by finding some surprising symbol or shape in the welter of shades, and draw that.
ADAM GOPNIK

Convention Drawing Finding Los Schematic Shade Shape Surprising Symbol Welter
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.
ADAM GOPNIK

Country Exactly Hand Heart Looked Sleeve Supposed
I think that we’re always drawn – particularly sophisticated people – are always drawn to the idea of simplicity.
ADAM GOPNIK

Always Drawn Idea Particularly People Sophisticated Think Thinking

Yet in truth the big question Camus asked was never the Anglo-American liberal one: How can we make the world a little bit better tomorrow?

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Yet in truth the big question Camus asked was never the Anglo-American liberal one: How can we make the world a little bit better tomorrow?

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