88 Quotes by Joseph Epstein

I know how many days in which I have just answered e-mail, had three phone calls and a two hour lunch. Poof, gone. They are not infrequent.

I know how deeply slothful I am.

If geniuses can sometimes make mistakes, cannot the rest of us on occasion be geniuses?

What distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, and what we do to make them come about.

My wife who is non-Jewish regrets it all the time that I can say these terrible things about fellow Jews and she can't

I just know so many people who have six or seven foreign languages and have read everything and have musical training and they are still dorks

We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents, or the country of our birth. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessnness, we do choose how we live.

We who are quotatious are never truly alone, but always hear the cheerful flow of remarks made by dead writers so much more intelligent than we.

I am not merely a habitual quoter but an incorrigible one. I am, I may as well face it, more quotatious than an old stock-market ticker-tape machine, except that you can't unplug me.