Sometimes it seems that we might have been happier if we had once had an aristocracy to blame everything on. Anatole Broyard More Quotes by Anatole Broyard More Quotes From Anatole Broyard The contents of someone's bookcase are part of his history, like an ancestral portrait. Anatole Broyard bookcases portraits Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city. Anatole Broyard rome cities If a book is really good, it deserves to be read again, and if it's great, it should be read at least three times. Anatole Broyard three should book Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live. There is in men, as Peter Quennell said, "a centrifugal tendency." In our wanderlust, we are lovers looking for consummation. Anatole Broyard men country travel A bookcase is as good as a view, as much of a panorama as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms and zephyrs. Anatole Broyard sunset sight book It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave. Anatole Broyard hygiene waiting love There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience. Anatole Broyard obedience relationship children Either a writer doesn't want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want. Anatole Broyard want writing To choose a writer for a friend is like palling around with your cardiologist, who might be musing as you talk to him that you are a sinking man. A writer's love for another writer is never quite free of malice. He may enjoy discussing your failures even more than you do. He probably sees you as tragic, like his characters - or unworthy of tragedy, which is worse. Anatole Broyard tragedy character men There are few things more subtly distressing than an inappropriate gift from someone close to you. Anatole Broyard distressing inappropriate A book is meant not only to be read, but to haunt you, to importune you like a lover or a parent, to be in your teeth like a piece of gristle. Anatole Broyard teeth parent book The first divorce in the world may have been a tragedy, but the hundred-millionth is not necessarily one. Anatole Broyard divorce tragedy world The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self. Anatole Broyard yes-and-no debate self Aphorisms are bad for novels. They stick in the reader's teeth. Anatole Broyard aphorism teeth sticks In novels, I said, people are transfigured by love. They’re elevated, made different, lifted out of their ordinariness…It’s not so much to ask, I said. I just want love to live up to its publicity. Anatole Broyard different want people I remember a table in BarchesterTowers that had more character than the combined heroes of three recent novels I've read. Anatole Broyard three hero character We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars. Anatole Broyard tourism winning war When friends stop being frank and useful to each other, the whole world loses some of its radiance. Anatole Broyard being-sad advice friendship The epic implications of being human end in more than this: We start our lives as if they were momentous stories, with a beginning, a middle and an appropriate end, only to find that they are mostly middles. Anatole Broyard being-human epic stories For years they have been using the role of 'sex object' as a cover while they spied out the land. Anatole Broyard women sex years
