Clifton Fadiman
16 quotes
Biography
Clifton Paul "Kip" Fadiman was an American intellectual, author, editor, and radio and television personality. He began his work in radio, and switched to television later in his career.
"A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself."
"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."
"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."
"An aphorism can contain only as much wisdom as overstatement will permit."
"Not to cover the subject, but to uncover and isolate a part of it … is the aim of the aphorist"
"Both the aphorism and the poem channel man’s wild impulse to escape the systems another part of him has so carefully constructed."
"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."
"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."
"Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality."
"To take wine into our mouths is to savor a droplet of the river of human history."
"One's first book kiss home run is always the best."
"One newspaper a day ought to be enough for anyone who still prefers to retain a little mental balance."
"When you travel remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable."
"The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech."
"There are two kinds of writers - the great ones who can give you truths and the lesser ones who can only give you themselves."
"Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye, particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something."