Clifton Fadiman Quotes

Recently I read the stories I wrote in my early 20s, to put in a volume. And here is this brittle young woman, writing about marriage as, not the worst thing, but the most boring thing that could happen to a person. Now I think I was wrong. I like to be proven wrong.

Those who write about life, reflect about life. you see in others who you are.

I've been through a heartbreak and seen the business side of the music industry. Now I see things clearer.

I'm not nearly as important as I used to think I was. It's a wonderful discovery.

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.

At the age of 60, I am less experimental and more mature. I want most of all to convey my understanding of life.

The older you get the more you understand what you're doing.

Like everybody, I've had a lot of pain in my life and I'm a work in progress. You must have a true desire to see the world from a different point of view, and that comes with growing up.

I'm beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

I'm not trying to sound like I turned into some kind of wise man, but it's nice to realize that your little pocket of the world isn't the whole world.

Go and experience life the way that someone else might experience it. Maybe you'll find meaning in a different corner of your brain. The fact that it changed doesn't negate the fact that it ever mattered.

Sometimes, when you live a life at such a wild edge, an extreme edge of experience, you can come back into the world - if you come back at all - with some essence from that experience that people find useful.

I sometimes find that in interviews you learn more about yourself than the person learned about you.

The advantage of age is that you swap youth for wisdom. You're so full of insecurities when you're young. 'Who am I? What do I have to do for people to like me?' You get caught up in things. You get very emotional about things.

If I'm going to change, my life and experiences should change me for the wiser and more profound.

The older I get, the surer I am that I'm not running the show.

O, would some Power give us, To see ourselves as others see us!

I think you just learn so much about yourself over the years.

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

I played with Eddy Curry twice and in New York, the second time, he asked, 'Who are you?' My first to fourth year I was a different person. I started thinking big picture, that maybe I don't have all the answers.

My life experience has made me realise what's important and what is not.

I guess you could say I have grown up, matured. I have seen a lot, and I guess that probably sums it up.

You can learn a lot if you become a student of what's happening to you.

I've seen a lot of things and I've experienced a lot of things.

It's really about connecting to your own humanity and your own behaviors, and getting to a level of self-awareness so that you can have perspective and step outside of yourself and transform and become another person.