19 Quotes by Phillip Lopate

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.— Walter Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library

The solution to entrapment in the narcissistic hothouse of self is to not relinquish autobiographical writing, but to expand the self by bringing one's curiosity to interface with more and more history and the present world.

The dinner party is a suburban form of entertainment. Its spread in our big cities represents an insidious Fifth Column suburbanization of the metropolis.

The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.

In the best nonfiction, it seems to me, you’re always made aware that you are being engaged with a supple mind at work. The story line or plot in nonfiction consists of the twists and turns of a thought process working itself out.

The knowledge that my discriminations are skewed and not always universally desirable doesn’t stop me in the least from making them.

Think of a dinner party as a club of revolutionaries, a technocratic elite whose social interactions that night are a dry run for some future takeover of the state.

I am apt to be harsh in my secret judgments of others, seeing them as defective because they are not enough like me.

I like the freedom that comes with lowered expectations.