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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.

Anne Fadiman

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Anne Fadiman
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: August 7
Author
Essayist
Journalist
New York City
New York
Taste
Aspirations
Brother
Selves
Parents
Tastes
Parent
Shelves
Snooping
Desire
Aspiration
Extravagantly
Able
Closest
Bookcases
Self
Desires
Scanning
Vices
Fantasize

More quotes by Anne Fadiman

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I have never been able to resist a book about books.
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Reading aloud means no skipping, no skimming, no cutting to the chase.
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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.
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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.
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It is a grave error to assume that ice cream consumption requires hot weather.
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...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
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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.
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Pen-bereavement is a serious matter.
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In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar.
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The action most worth watching is not at the center of things, but where edges meet.
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When I write after dark, observed Cyril Connolly, the shades of evening scatter their purple through my prose
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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.
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You can miss a lot by sticking to the point.
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If my father were still writing essays, every full-grown 'girl' would probably be transformed into a'woman'.
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I'd rather have a book, but in a pinch I'll settle for a set of Water Pik instructions.
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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
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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
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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
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E-mail is a modern Penny Post: the world is a single city with a single postal rate.
Anne Fadiman
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Our view of reality is only a view, not reality itself.
Anne Fadiman