black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

Women choose Alice [in Wonderland] because every woman sees herself as the only reasonable creature among crazy people who think they are disinherited monarchs
ADAM GOPNIK

Choose Give Herself More Only Understand Woman
The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped.
ADAM GOPNIK

Being Complicated Expatriate Feeling Free Kind Loneliness Odd
We call disasters unimaginable, but all we do is imagine such things. […]
ADAM GOPNIK

Assure Call Disaster Imagine Such Thing Unimaginable
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
Often the block [in writing] comes from the wall of words that keep out the simplicity of sense.
ADAM GOPNIK

Block Keep Often Sense Simplicity Wall Word Writing
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
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
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
For 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
ADAM GOPNIK

Art Idea Mistrust Poetry Spend Talk Talking Truth Writing Year
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
I rush to add that I find the Web infinitely useful for rustling up information, settling arguments or locating the legends of rock stars.
ADAM GOPNIK

Add Argument Infinitely Information Rock Rush Rushtling Star Web
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
Music is a current of hard choices made to seem easy by the mind.
ADAM GOPNIK

Choice Current Easy Made Mind Mindset Music Okay Seem
Cooking is the showy side of domesticity.
ADAM GOPNIK

Anand Thakur
If we had been there listening, we still might not have been able to determine exactly what Stanton said. All we know for sure is that everyone was weeping, and the room was full.
ADAM GOPNIK

Determine Exactly Full Listening might Room Stanton Still Sure Weeping
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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