I'm often a crier and many things make me cry. I come from a crying family - my mother cries, my grandma used to cry. It was never shameful to cry. My father never told me men don't cry.
Michael SilverblattIf I want to have a conversation, I can't have a list of questions, because the second question on the list is going to interrupt the conversation.
Michael SilverblattThe art (as opposed to the technology) of reading requires that you develop a beautiful tolerance for incomprehension. The greatest books are the books that you come to understand more deeply with time, with age and with rereading.
Michael SilverblattA beautiful word in the middle of a sentence can sometimes reduce me to tears in an interview, and when I'm reading, too. I've sometimes wondered whether I'm at the point of tears all the time because I use my eyes so much that they're strained and on the verge of tears anyway.
Michael SilverblattI like to think that at best the interview becomes something like the unaccountable experience of talking to oneself in a mirror.
Michael SilverblattThe book is an experience that allows you to witness your feelings without having to surrender to them, to succumb to them, or to be battered by them. It gives you access to a deep knowledge of how you would respond to things you would never, thank goodness, have been required to experience.
Michael Silverblatt