Clifton Fadiman Quotes

Not to cover the subject, but to uncover and isolate a part of it … is the aim of the aphorist

Clifton Fadiman

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• It's just a blessing from above. I can't stress that enough, because I don't feel like it's anything that I've done. For me to say, 'Well, it's because of this, this and that is why I've been able to play,' it's just a lie. I couldn't tell you why.

  

  D'Brickashaw Ferguson
  • Done
  • Why
  • Stress

• The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas - fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.

  

  P. J. O'Rourke
  • Ideas
  • Bed
  • Communism

• We must defend what we have achieved so far.

  

  Viktor Orban
  • Achieved
  • Far
  • Defend

• Nothing exists except through language.

  

  Hans-Georg Gadamer
  • Language
  • Nothing
  • Through

• One of the problems with posing a 'bold new plan' is that you can't just extrapolate from previous plans.

  

  Nathan Myhrvold
  • Problems
  • Plan
  • Bold

• Despite the disreputable company it keeps, bismuth is harmless. In fact, it's medicinal: Doctors prescribe it to soothe ulcers, and it's the 'bis' in hot-pink Pepto-Bismol. Overall, it seems like the most out-of-place element on the periodic table, a gentleman among scoundrels.

  

  Sam Kean
  • Company
  • Gentleman
  • Pink

• Women have simple tastes. They get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • Women
  • Children
  • Love

• Chet loved artists. He did. But he was caught up in the system. He had two hats. He had to have 'em because he did two things: he was an artist, and he was an executive.

  

  Waylon Jennings
  • Up
  • Artist
  • Loved

• A lot of people tend to go into the music industry and be really - what do you call it? - oblivious to everything that comes with it.

  

  Yuna
  • People
  • Music
  • You

• I condemn what happened in Madrid, but it is suspicious. If tomorrow there will be another bombing, in France for example, who will gain power? Of course not Jacques Chirac, but Le Pen.

  

  Walid Jumblatt
  • Power
  • Tomorrow
  • Pen

• Actually, the fun part was not knowing what the heck I was going to be doing.

  

  Utada Hikaru
  • Fun
  • Doing
  • Not Knowing

• Something that's very painful for me is when people wear pants that are too short.

  

  Rachel Zoe
  • People
  • Me
  • Very

• Charlie Finley has soured my stomach for baseball.

  

  Vida Blue
  • Baseball
  • Stomach
  • Charlie

• At the after-party of the Indy 500, I'm usually wearing jeans and a tank top.

  

  Danica Patrick
  • Party
  • Top
  • Jeans

• When I first started cooking, I was very much an intuitive cook when it came to taste, but that didn't mean I didn't want to know why some things worked and why others did not. My interest took me to culinary school.

  

  Carla Hall
  • School
  • Why
  • Me

• I love performing. I love getting out there. It's kind of like why I make music.

  

  Yelawolf
  • Music
  • Love
  • Why

• I listen to a lot of jazz. I'm a big Sinatra geek. I love Chet Baker.

  

  Eddie Marsan
  • Listen
  • Jazz
  • Big

• But we never get back our youth… The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • Joy
  • Memory
  • Youth

• I would love to work with Billy Corgan but then he knows that… I dream of playing with Herbie Hancock but I think if it ever happened I would just break down and cry!

  

  Roger O'Donnell The Cure
  • Work
  • Dream
  • Cry

• Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It's transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It's uplifting, it's encouraging, it's strengthening.

  

  Aretha Franklin
  • People
  • Music
  • Happened

• He wasn't good with this sort of thing - with the back-and-forth dance between man and woman. He wasn't even sure if they were dancing, or if she was merely being polite.

  

  Courtney Milan
  • Man
  • Woman
  • Dance

• Automobile is one of the most successful inventions of all time, but in my view, it is thoroughly obsolete already. And so by fundamentally rethinking the automobile, thinking of it as a robot on four wheels, essentially, something that can communicate with other intelligent devices, it can operate in a coordinated way, you can really start to fundamentally rethink urban personal mobility.

  

  William J. Mitchell
  • Thinking
  • Successful
  • Intelligent

• Not to cover the subject, but to uncover and isolate a part of it … is the aim of the aphorist

  

  Clifton Fadiman