black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
I think I’m more intensely opinionated when I speak; more agreeably balanced when I write.
ADAM GOPNIK

Agreeably Intensely More Oiontated Speak Think Thinking Writing
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
Someone once said that the joy is not in writing but in having written. I can’t say I find that to be true, though I understand the sentiment.
ADAM GOPNIK

Find Joy Once Said Sentiment Someone True Understand Writing
In the New Yorker library, I have long been shelved between Nadine Gordimer and Brendan Gill; an eerie little space nestled between high seriousness of purpose and legendary lightness of touch.
ADAM GOPNIK

Country Eerie Legend Library Long People Purpose Serious Shelved Space Time
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
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
The reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution – perhaps the first modern political institution.
ADAM GOPNIK

British Good Institution Modern Monarchy Perhaps Political Really
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
It was the grander French one: Why not kill yourself tonight? That the answers come to much the same thing in the end-easy does it
ADAM GOPNIK

Answer Country Easy Grander Kill Same Thing Tonight Yourself
I think – the more sentences you write, the more sentences you have written, if that slightly Zen confection makes any sense.
ADAM GOPNIK

Confection Make More Think Sense Sentence Slightly Write Written
After all, spinning is its own reward. There wouldn’t be carousels if it weren’t so.
ADAM GOPNIK

After Carousel Honor Own Proud Reward Spinning
I try to turn a written thing, when I’m in trouble with it, into a spoken thing: I start imagining what I would say to someone if I were trying to tell the story or make the argument.
ADAM GOPNIK

Argument Imagination Spoken Stories Trouble Try Trying Written
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
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
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

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.”

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.”

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Adam Gopnik Quotes