Clifton Fadiman

A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself.

When you read a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.

Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking including thinking about not thinking.

By the end of high school I was not of course an educated man but I knew how to try to become one.

My main recollection is of the work I had to do in order to eat.

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.

By the end of high school I was not of course an educated man, but I knew how to try to become one.

A cheese may disappoint. It may be dull it may be naive it may be oversophisticated. Yet it remains cheese milks leap toward immortality.

Cheese is milk's leap towards immortality.

I tried to use the questions and answers as an armature on which to build a sculpture of genuine conversation.

The man who attracts luck carries with him the magnet of preparation.

Liquor is not a necessity. It is a means of momentarily sidestepping necessity.

Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.

Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye, particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something.

For most men, life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.

Gertrude Stein was masterly in making nothing happen very slowly.

Cheese is milks leap toward immortality.

The German mind has a talent for making no mistakes but the very greatest.

As between mileage and experience choose experience.