20 Quotes & Sayings By Clifton Fadiman

Clifton Fadiman is an American journalist who has written several books about writing, including The Writer's Art. He was also the founder of the New York Review of Books. He is generally considered to be one of the most influential American critics and essayists of his time.

Don't be afraid of poetry.
1
Don't be afraid of poetry. Clifton Fadiman
When you re-read a classic you do not see in...
2
When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before. Clifton Fadiman
Books act like a developing fluid on film. That is,...
3
Books act like a developing fluid on film. That is, they bring into consciousness what you didn’t know you knew. Clifton Fadiman
4
Reading to small children is a specialty. Clifton Fadiman
5
One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention. Clifton Fadiman
6
When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. Clifton Fadiman
7
The tantrums of cloth-headed celluloid idols are deemed fit for grown-up conversation, while silence settles over such a truly important matter as food. Clifton Fadiman
8
The kind of poetry to avoid in the pretty-pretty kind that pleased our grandmothers, the kind that Longfellow and Tennyson, good poets at their best, wrote at their worst. Clifton Fadiman
9
When you read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before. Clifton Fadiman
10
One's first book kiss home run is always the best. Clifton Fadiman
11
Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality. Clifton Fadiman
12
One newspaper a day ought to be enough for anyone who still prefers to retain a little mental balance. Clifton Fadiman
13
When you travel remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. Clifton Fadiman
14
The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech. Clifton Fadiman
15
There are two kinds of writers - the great ones who can give you truths and the lesser ones who can only give you themselves. Clifton Fadiman
16
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself. Clifton Fadiman
17
To take wine into our mouths is to savor a droplet of the river of human history. Clifton Fadiman
18
Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye, particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something. Clifton Fadiman
19
For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed. Clifton Fadiman