Anatole Broyard
11 quotes
Biography
"The tension between 'yes' and 'no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot', makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self."
"The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait."(About Books; Recoiling, Rereading, Retelling, New York Times, February 22, 1987)"
"It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn’t wait to leave."
"The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait."
"A good book is never exhausted. It goes on whispering to you from the wall."
"To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding."
"Lapped in poetry, wrapped in the picturesque, armed with logical sentences and inalienable words."
"We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars."
"The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral port"
"There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience."
"Travel is like adultery; one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live...in our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation."