Quote

For me writing is foremost a mode of thinking and when it works well, an act of discovery

Joseph Epstein

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Joseph Epstein
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: January 9
Essayist
Short Story Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Aristides
Works
Wells
Well
Writing
Thinking
Foremost
Mode
Discovery

More quotes by Joseph Epstein

Image
One serious drawback about letters is that, in order to get them, one must send some out. When it comes to the mail, I feel it is better to receive than to give.
Joseph Epstein
Image
My wife who is non-Jewish regrets it all the time that I can say these terrible things about fellow Jews and she can't.
Joseph Epstein
Image
Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all.
Joseph Epstein
Image
If geniuses can sometimes make mistakes, cannot the rest of us on occasion be geniuses?
Joseph Epstein
Image
The problem for me is that reading is, I won't say a sacred, but nevertheless a pretty serious act.
Joseph Epstein
Image
No nostalgia runs deeper than that for something one has never known and now cannot obtain.
Joseph Epstein
Image
Within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.
Joseph Epstein
Image
The decisive moment in the defeat of upper class, capital-S, Society may have come when, in newspapers all over the nation, what used to be call the Society page was replaced by the Style section.
Joseph Epstein
Image
I am married to someone I love.
Joseph Epstein
Image
We do choose how we shall live
Joseph Epstein
Image
That wine drinking is more effete than beer drinking? No question.
Joseph Epstein
Image
No one has really ever defined what a friend is.
Joseph Epstein
Image
In recompense, envy may be the subtlest - perhaps I should say the most insidious - of the seven deadly sins.
Joseph Epstein
Image
What distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, and what we do to make them come about.
Joseph Epstein
Image
Courage is nine-tenths context. What is courageous in one setting can be foolhardy in another and even cowardly in a third.
Joseph Epstein
Image
A cat is the only domestic animal I know who toilet trains itself and does a damned impressive job of it.
Joseph Epstein
Image
I myself think anti-Semitism is about envy.
Joseph Epstein
Image
Someone — Cyril Connolly? Ezra Pound? — once said that anything that can be read twice is literature I would say that anything that bears saying twice is quotable.
Joseph Epstein
Image
Envy is never general, but always very particular - at least envy of the kind one feels strongly.
Joseph Epstein
Image
What all great teachers appear to have in common is love of their subject, an obvious satisfaction in rousing this love in their students, and an ability to convince them that what they are being taught is deadly serious
Joseph Epstein