Anne Fadiman Quotes

Quotes about:

Books Children Parents Reading Sleep Writing

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.

Anne Fadiman

Book, Writing, Sleep

50 Copy quote
My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading.

Anne Fadiman

Daughter, Children, Book

38 Copy quote
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.

Anne Fadiman

Weather, Interesting, Borders

"The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down". Book by Anne Fadiman, 2012.

17 Copy quote
In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar.

Anne Fadiman

Book, Views, Nineteen

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.148, Macmillan

25 Copy quote
Our view of reality is only a view, not reality itself.

Anne Fadiman

Reality, Views

Anne Fadiman (1998). “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures”, p.276, Macmillan

8 Copy quote
When I visit a new bookstore, I demand cleanliness, computer monitors, and rigorous alphabetization. When I visit a secondhand bookstore, I prefer indifferent housekeeping, sleeping cats, and sufficient organizational chaos.

Anne Fadiman

Sleep, Cat, Bookstores

18 Copy quote
It is a grave error to assume that ice cream consumption requires hot weather.

Anne Fadiman

Errors, Ice Cream, Weather

Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.49, Macmillan

10 Copy quote
Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves.

Anne Fadiman

Book, Stories, Refrigerators

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.15, Macmillan

11 Copy quote
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.

Anne Fadiman

Long, Library, Belief

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.21, Macmillan

14 Copy quote
The action most worth watching is not at the center of things, but where edges meet.

Anne Fadiman

Action, Shoreline, Edges

Anne Fadiman (1998). “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures”, p.8, Macmillan

11 Copy quote
Some friends of theirs had rented their house for several months to an interior decorator. When they returned, they discovered that their entire library had been reorganized by color and size. Shortly thereafter, the decorator met with a fatal automobile accident. I confess that when this story was told, everyone around the dinner table concurred that justice had been served.

Anne Fadiman

Color, Justice, House

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.5, Macmillan

4 Copy quote
Anyone who doubts that caffeine is a drug should read some of the prose composed under its influence.

Anne Fadiman

Drug, Doubt, Influence

Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.171, Macmillan

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

Anne Fadiman

Reading, Mean, Cutting

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.137, Macmillan

8 Copy quote
One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely dormant and that the old joys can re emerge fresh and new and in a completely different form.

Anne Fadiman

Children, Parenting, Thinking

Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.27, Macmillan

4 Copy quote
I can think of few better ways to introduce a child to books than to let her stack them, upend them, rearrange them, and get her fingerprints all over them.

Anne Fadiman

Children, Book, Thinking

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

Anne Fadiman

Book, Able

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.139, Macmillan

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

Anne Fadiman

Fate, Typos, Imagine

5 Copy quote
You can miss a lot by sticking to the point.

Anne Fadiman

Missing

Anne Fadiman (1998). “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures”, p.13, Macmillan

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

Anne Fadiman

Book, Literature, Copyright

Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.88, Macmillan

4 Copy quote
Pen-bereavement is a serious matter.

Anne Fadiman

Bereavement, Matter, Serious

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.89, Macmillan

4 Copy quote
When I write after dark", observed Cyril Connolly, "the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose

Anne Fadiman

Writing, Dark, Purple

Anne Fadiman (2008). “At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays”, p.64, Macmillan

5 Copy quote
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.

Anne Fadiman

Book, Buttons, Use

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.39, Macmillan

4 Copy quote
Americans admire success. Englishmen admire heroic failure

Anne Fadiman

Heroic, Admire, Englishmen

Anne Fadiman (2011). “Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader”, p.24, Macmillan

6 Copy quote
...the reader who plucks a book from her shelf only once is as deprived as the listener who, after attending a single performance of a Beethoven symphony, never hears it again.

Anne Fadiman

Book, Symphony, Shelves

5 Copy quote
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.

Anne Fadiman

Book, Worry, Thank God

5 Copy quote

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Born: August 7, 1953
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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