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Anne Fadiman Biography

Anne Fadiman (born August 7, 1953 in New York City) is an American essayist and reporter.

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Anne Fadiman Quotes

To use an electronics analogy, closing a book on a bookmark is like pressing the Stop button, whereas when you leave the book facedown, you've only pressed Pause.

Book, Button, Buttons, Pressing, Stop, Use

It is a truism of epistolary psychology that, for example, a Christmas thank-you note written on December 26 can say any old thing, but if you wait until February, you are convinced that nothing less than Middlemarch will do.

Nothing, Old, Old Things, Psychology, Truism, Waiting

I can imagine few worse fates than walking around for the rest of one's life wearing a typo.

Fate, Imagine, Rest, Typo, Typos

If you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs.

Book, Writing, Sleep, Muffin, Love, Read

When the Irish novelist John McGahern was a child, his sisters unlaced and removed one of his shoes while he was reading. He did not stir. They placed a straw hat on his head. No response. Only when they took away the wooden chair on which he was sitting did he, as he puts it, 'wake out of the book'.

Book, Children, Reading, Sisters, Sitting, Wooden

My brother and I were able to fantasize far more extravagantly about our parents' tastes and desires, their aspirations and their vices, by scanning their bookcases than by snooping in their closest. Their selves were on their shelves.

Brother, Self, Parent, Vices, Shelves, Parents

E-mail is a modern Penny Post: the world is a single city with a single postal rate.

Cities, World, Letters, City, Penny, Rate

Reading aloud means no skipping, no skimming, no cutting to the chase.

Reading, Mean, Cutting, Chase, Skipping, Aloud

Americans admire success. Englishmen admire heroic failure

Admire, Englishmen, Failure, Heroic, Success

I, on the other hand, believe that books, maps, scissors, and Scotch tape dispensers are all unreliable vagrants, likely to take off for parts unknown unless strictly confined to quarters.

Believe, Book, Scotch, Hand, Books, Likely

Some day, as soon as a book is printed it will be simultaneously put into digital form. That will be a wonderful research tool, but it will never substitute for holding the book. I feel certain that at least within my lifetime, everyone will still be going to the bookstore and buying printed books. Thank God I'll die before I have to worry about whether the printed book itself will disappear. That's something I don't want to live to see.

Book, Bookstore, Digital, Substitute, Thank God, Worry

It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.

Belief, Inspection, Library, Long, Odd, Unrelated

I am very grateful to the electronic world for making my life easier, but there is something about holding a book - the smell and the world of association. Even when e-books are perfected, as they surely will be, it will be like being in bed with a very well-made robot rather than a warm, soft, human being whom you love.

Book, Grateful, Life, Smell, Soft

I have never been able to resist a book about books.

Able, Book, Books, Resist

One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights [. . . ] a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer.

Belongs, Book, Copyright, Copyrights, Literature

If the soul cannot find its jacket. it is condemned to an eternity of wandering--naked and alone

Condemned, Eternity, Jacket, Naked, Soul

Something amazing happens when the rest of the world is sleeping. I am glued to my chair. I forget that I ever wanted to do anything but write. The crowded city, the crowded apartment, and the crowded calendar suddenly seem spacious. Three or four hours pass in a moment; I have no idea what time it is, because I never check the clock. If I chose to listen, I could hear the swish of taxis bound for downtown bars or the soft saxophone riffs that drift from a neighbor's window, but nothing gets through. I am suspended in a sensory deprivation tank, and the very lack of sensation is delicious.

Sleep, Writing, Cities, Deprivation, Saxophone, Sleeping

I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in these places, and often, if you stand at the point of tangency, you can see both sides better than if you were in the middle of either one.

Weather, Interesting, Sides, Center, Watching

Pen-bereavement is a serious matter.

Bereavement, Matter, Serious

You can miss a lot by sticking to the point.

Miss, Missing, Point, Sticking

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