The reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution – perhaps the first modern political institution.
ADAM GOPNIKFor all the years I’d spent talking about pictures, the truth was that I had no idea how to draw or what it felt like to do it. I
More Adam Gopnik Quotes
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Nothing in a graduate degree in art history prepares you for the eloquence of the eraser.
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I think that we’re always drawn – particularly sophisticated people – are always drawn to the idea of simplicity.
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Protein was the most valued ingredient 250 years ago: It was the rarest thing. Now the rarest thing we have is time: time to cook and time to eat.
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Fanaticism comes in as many flavors as there are human beings.
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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.
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The trick and the trap and the horror is not faith, Scott. I don’t think the trap and the horror is fanaticism.
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I think the worst thing we can do is to concede to fanaticism its devotion, say. Well, you have to understand, these people are really fanatics, so we should back down from them.
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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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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.
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Making an idea into an emotion.
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I think – the more sentences you write, the more sentences you have written, if that slightly Zen confection makes any sense.
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After all, spinning is its own reward. There wouldn’t be carousels if it weren’t so.
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You learn to sing with, not argue at, your possible readers.
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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.
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Writing is the process of finding something to distract you from writing, and of all the helpful distractions – adultery, alcohol and acedia, all of which aided our writing fathers – none can equal the Internet.
ADAM GOPNIK