There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
Clifton FadimanReading is not an operation performed on something inert but a relationship entered into with another vital being.
Clifton FadimanInsomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.
Clifton FadimanTo divide one's life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.
Clifton FadimanWe prefer to think that the absence of inverted commas guarantees the originality of a thought, whereas it may be merely that the utterer has forgotten its source.
Clifton FadimanSeriously, I do not know what to say of this book [ Absalom, Absalom!] except that it seem to point to the final blowup of what was once a remarkable, if minor, talentโฆ this is a penny dreadful tricked up in fancy language and given a specious depth by the expert manipulation of a series of eccentric technical tricks. The characters have no magnitude and no meaning because they have no more reality than a mince-pie nightmare.
Clifton Fadiman