Someone once said that the joy is not in writing but in having written. I can't say I find that to be true, though I understand the sentiment. Adam Gopnik More Quotes by Adam Gopnik More Quotes From Adam Gopnik Merely that you start off with ideas buzzing around in your head, and then you try to give them the simpler, more graceful shape, of a feeling that a reader might share. You learn to sing with, not argue at, your possible readers. Adam Gopnik feelings giving ideas I still think the best classic meal in New York is a coffee-shop breakfast - you sort of can't skip it. Adam Gopnik coffee new-york thinking In bookstores, my stuff is usually filed in the out-of-the-way, additional interest sections. Adam Gopnik bookstores stuff way Writing is the process of finding something to distract you from writing, and of all the helpful distractions - adultery, alcohol and acedia, all of which aided our writing fathers - none can equal the Internet. Adam Gopnik alcohol writing father There are as many attitudes to cooking as there are people cooking, of course, but I do think that cooking guys tend - I am a guilty party here - to take, or get, undue credit for domestic virtue, when in truth cooking is the most painless and, in its ways, ostentatious of the domestic chores. Adam Gopnik party attitude thinking The World Series is played in my doubtless too-nostalgic imagination in some kind of autumn afternoon light, and seeing it exclusively in the bitter chill of midnight breaks the spell of even the best of games. Adam Gopnik autumn light games The coffee shop is a great New York institution, but it has terrible coffee. And the more traditional coffee shops are trying to catch up with more sophisticated coffee drinkers. Adam Gopnik coffee new-york trying In the New Yorker library, I have long been shelved between Nadine Gordimer and Brendan Gill; an eerie little space nestled between high seriousness of purpose and legendary lightness of touch. Adam Gopnik eerie space long All tastes have the quality of being in some way artificial and invented. The secret of life is to have enough detachment from your tastes and your values to see that they are a little bit absurd. Adam Gopnik quality secret littles You can't have a decent food culture without a decent coffee culture: the two things grow up together. Adam Gopnik food-culture growing-up coffee Protein was the most valued ingredient 250 years ago: It was the rarest thing. Now the rarest thing we have is time: time to cook and time to eat. Adam Gopnik protein ingredients years After all, spinning is its own reward. There wouldn't be carousels if it weren't so. Adam Gopnik carousels spinning rewards