Clifton Fadiman Quotes

I like to quote things.

Metaphor matters because it creates expectations.

Inevitably, almost everything we say is either quotation or paraphrase.

Quote/Unquote and you can quote me on the quote/unquote.

I don't follow anything blindly. I have to know the entire thing, if I have to get in to it. It might sound funny to you, but it's like using English language. I use an English word only when I know its meaning and understand its connotation. You won't hear me say, 'What's up, dude' or anything like that just for the heck of it.

The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

Be able to describe anything visual, such as a street scene, in words that convey your meaning.

The thing about metaphors is that, if you give them away, you give away the mystery.

Next to being witty, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.

But it's not just a game of finding literary references.

I'm not a pop song lyric writer. I can't just focus on one simple meaning or even a double entendre.

Everything for me becomes allegory.

It is important that we realize that words have meanings far beyond the dictionary definition.

If you can't be funny, be interesting.

Even if that were true, it wouldn't be irony," Lucas pointed out. "Irony is the contrast between what's said and what happens.

The metaphors exist for the stories.

Metaphors are an interesting example of creating magic in prose.

I believe it was Gayelord Hauser, the nutritionist, who said, 'You are what you eat,' but if you happen to be an intellectual, you are what you quote.

To quote copiously and well, requires taste, judgment, and erudition, a feeling for the beautiful, an appreciation of the noble, and a sense of the profound.

Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands. The average man ought to be allowed a quotation of no less than three sentences, one to make his statement and two to explain what he meant. Ralph Waldo Emerson was about the only one who could stand having his utterances broken up into sentence quotations, and every once in a while even he doesn’t sound so sensible in short snatches.

We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates. We read the quotation with his eyes, andfind a new and fervent sense; as a passage from one of the poets, well recited, borrows new interest from the rendering. As the journals say, "the italics are ours.

What a strange expression said the herbalist who would compare themselves to chopped liver in the first place? If you have to to choose an organ why not pick a gallbladder or a thymus gland instead? Much more interesting than a liver. Or what about chopped t-

All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. We quote not only books and proverbs, but arts, sciences, religion, customs, and laws; nay, we quote temples and houses, tables and chairs, by imitation.

Wit will shine Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.