32 Quotes by Alfred Kazin

Walking I am unbound, and find that precious unity of life and imagination, that silent outgoing self, which is so easy to loose, but which a high moments seems to start up again from the deepest rhythms of my own body. How often have I had this longing for an infinite walk - of going unimpeded, until the movement of my body as I walk fell into the flight of streets under my feet - until I in my body and the world in its skin of earth were blended into a single act of knowing.

To have a sense of history one must consider oneself a piece of history....

What happens whenever we convert a writer into a symbol is that we lose the writer himself in all his indefeasible singularity, his particular inimitable genius.

We never know how much has been missing from our lives until a true writer comes along.

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

Modern American literature was born in protest, born in rebellion, born out of the sense of loss and indirection which was imposed upon the new generations out of the realization that the old formal culture-the “New England idea”-could no longer serve.

To have a sense of history one must consider oneself a piece of history...

When a writer talks about his work, he’s talking about a love affair.

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.