All Quotes by Clifton Fadiman
“One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.”
“For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.”
“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.”
“An aphorism can contain only as much wisdom as overstatement will permit.”
“Not to cover the subject, but to uncover and isolate a part of it … is the aim of the aphorist”
“Both the aphorism and the poem channel man’s wild impulse to escape the systems another part of him has so carefully constructed.”
“A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself.”