Clifton Fadiman Quotes

When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.

I never got to the point when I felt like running away from it all.

I think people watch TV to escape from life.

When entertainment was begun, during the Depression, it was supposed to take people's minds off reality. People could sing, dance, act or do anything. It was the type of entertainment that was available.

We're all looking for those moments - a relief. That's why people go out and treat themselves.

Escapism, we are led to believe, is evidence of a deficiency in character, a certain failure of temperament, and like so many -isms, it is to be strenuously avoided. 'How do you expect to get ahead?,' people ask. But the question altogether misses the point. The escapist doesn't want to get ahead. He simply wants to get away.

Beer. Now there's a temporary solution.

I'm trying to tell a story, to entertain. I try and do something that might just take people's minds off their troubles.

How sweet for those faring badly to forget their misfortunes even for a short time.

If I can make people forget whatever they're dealing with for an hour and a half, two hours every night, that's nice.

As entertainment, fiction may offer momentary relief from the stresses of reality.

If I was performing, I had no pain. But you can't stay on stage 24 hours a day.

When I used to see things in the newspapers, going onto the pitch was the best way to get away from it.

Well, I git enough sorrow. I like to git away from it.

You need a long hard day's work to reveal the logic of the craving for very bad tv and alcohol.

Let's sink another drink, cause it will give me time to think.

The philosopher says think your way out. The sensualist says play your way out but none of it works.

In this job, there are some simple pleasures that really help you cope. One is books, I mean, books are a great escape. Books are a way to get your mind on something else.

Humor is an escape, because you cannot think about your problems when you are trying to be funny; so, in essence, "being a humorist" gives you a valid excuse to hide from your pain.

Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape - all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can't stand it. We feel we have to soften it, pad it with something, and we become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain.

You can kill a lot of time if you really want to put your mind to it Or leave it all behind and never really have to go through it

Klaus sighed, and opened a book, and as at so many other times when the middle Baudelaire child did not want to think about his circumstances, he began to read.

As long as I kept moving, my grief streamed out behind me like a swimmer's long hair in water. I knew the weight was there but it didn't touch me. Only when I stopped did the slick, dark stuff of it come floating around my face, catching my arms and throat till I began to drown. So I just didn't stop.

I find drinking really helps.

You never know. Say the arena's actually a giant cake-" "Say we move on," I broke in.