32 Quotes by Alan Jacobs

There’s a famous and often-told story about the great economist John Maynard Keynes: once, when accused of having flip-flopped on some policy issue, Keynes acerbically replied, “When the facts change, sir, I change my mind. What do you do?

Child, to say the very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.” A.

And yet rereading a book can often be a more significant, dramatic, and, yes, new experience than encountering an unfamiliar work.

His students were usually struck first by his appearance: he wore old tweed jackets until they fell apart, kept well into his fifties overcoats that he had inherited from Albert, and, with his ruddy complexion and hearty manner, reminded many students of a grocer or a butcher. But the voice soon captivated them. Little.

You can reread not from love or hatred but from a sense, often inchoate, that there’s more to this book than you have ben yet able to receive.