Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye, particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something. – Clifton Fadiman
One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention. – Clifton Fadiman
Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking. – Clifton Fadiman
When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable. – Clifton Fadiman
My son is 7 years old. I am 54. It has taken me a great many years to reach that age. I am more respected in the community, I am stronger, I am more intelligent and I think I am better than he is. I don’t want to be a pal, I want to be a father. – Clifton Fadiman
When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before. – Clifton Fadiman
There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves. – Clifton Fadiman
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke – and that the joke is oneself. – Clifton Fadiman
I tried to use the questions and answers as an armature on which to build a sculpture of genuine conversation. – Clifton Fadiman
I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing. – Clifton Fadiman
By the end of high school I was not of course an educated man, but I knew how to try to become one. – Clifton Fadiman
Mr. Faulkner, of course, is interested in making your mind rather than your flesh creep. – Clifton Fadiman
For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed. – Clifton Fadiman
