New York has always been a place where it is possible to have memories without the experience that conventionally precede them. Adam Gopnik More Quotes by Adam Gopnik More Quotes From Adam Gopnik The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Adam Gopnik scandal moral brutality We breathe in our first language, and swim in our second. Adam Gopnik swim travel firsts The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive. Adam Gopnik powerful giving mean I think I'm more intensely opinionated when I speak; more agreeably balanced when I write. Adam Gopnik speak writing thinking Men choose Hamlet because every man sees himself as a disinherited monarch. Women choose Alice [in Wonderland] because every woman sees herself as the only reasonable creature among crazy people who think they are disinherited monarchs. Adam Gopnik crazy men thinking The French believe that all errors are distant, someone else's fault. Americans believe that there is no distance, no difference, and therefore that there are no errors, that any troubles are simple misunderstandings, consequent on your not yet having spoken English loudly enough. Adam Gopnik distance simple believe Love, like light, is a thing that is enacted better than defined: we know it afterward by the traces it leaves on paper. Adam Gopnik light paper knows In an age of malice and bad faith on many sides, I reread White or Thurber or Mitchell and am reminded again that good writing is done, as I said in my elegy for Salinger, with an active eye and ear and an ardent heart, and in no other way. Adam Gopnik eye heart writing There are two kinds of travelers. There is the kind who goes to see what there is to see, and the kind who has an image in his head and goes out to accomplish it. The first visitor has an easier time, but I think the second visitor sees more. Adam Gopnik two firsts thinking The loneliness of the expatriate is of an odd and complicated kind, for it is inseparable from the feeling of being free, of having escaped. Adam Gopnik being-free loneliness feelings Sometimes having a good time can be the outward evidence of a deep re-thinking. Adam Gopnik good-times sometimes thinking I don't miss the obligation to be opinionated, but I do regret the chance to share a joy. Adam Gopnik regret missing joy What drives innovation is abundance and ease, not the pressure of scarcity. Adam Gopnik scarcity innovation ease Frauds master our minds; magicians, like poets and lovers, engage them in a permanent maze of possibilities. Adam Gopnik mazes magic mind When handsome men or beautiful women take up the work of the intellect, it impresses us because we know they could have chosen other paths to being impressive; that they chose the path of the mind suggests that there is on it something more worthwhile than a circuitous route to the good things that the good-looking get just by showing up. Adam Gopnik mind beautiful men A good analogy [Charlie Hebdo] in lots of ways is "South Park" - the hugely popular American cartoon show - and the things that the "South Park" creators have created, like "The Book Of Mormon," the Broadway musical. If I were a devout Mormon, I would be offended by a lot of things that go on in "The Book Of Mormon," right? It mocks mercilessly the pretensions to truth of Mormonism and the pretensions to virtue of Mormon missionaries. Adam Gopnik charlie-hebdo musical book Going to a restaurant is one of my keenest pleasures. Meeting someplace with old and new friends, ordering wine, eating food, surrounded by strangers, I think is the core of what it means to live a civilised life. Adam Gopnik wine mean thinking Wit and puns aren't just décor in the mind; they're essential signs that the mind knows it's on, recognizes its own software, can spot the bugs in its own program. Adam Gopnik bugs essentials mind I think that we're always drawn - particularly sophisticated people - are always drawn to the idea of simplicity. Adam Gopnik people ideas thinking Writing doesn't come easily to anyone, I think, certainly not to me. But pressure and practice does lend a certain fluency, I think - the more sentences you write, the more sentences you have written, if that slightly Zen confection makes any sense. Adam Gopnik practice writing thinking
