32 Quotes by Alfred Kazin

The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.

If we practiced medicine like we practice education, we'd look for the liver on the right side and left side in alternate years.

History has become more important than ever because of the to unprecedented ability of the historical sciences to take in man's life on earth as a whole.

Art changes all the time, but it never "improves." It may go down, or up, but it never improves as technology and medicine improve.

What need had the businessman to scribble or philosophize when he dominated the imagination of his time and the frantic materialism that was his principle of existence had become the haunting central figure in contemporary life?

A year after Hemingway died on the front page, Faulkner went off after a binge, as if dying was nobody's business but his own.

Altogether beautiful in the power of its feeling. As beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway.

If we practiced medicine like we practice education, wed look for the liver on the right side and left side in alternate years.