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. – Joseph Epstein
I know from the middle distance I give off the look of being prolific, which is a funny compliment to receive. – Joseph Epstein
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. – Joseph Epstein
I am basically a complainer and all the grounds for complaint have been swept out from under me. – Joseph Epstein
Culture means, I think, that you have widened your experience enough through reading and through being a little bit thoughtful about these things that it has changed your outlook in some ways. And not necessarily made you a better human being but made you see things. – Joseph Epstein
One of the pleasures of being a Jew, I don’t have to tell you, it allows you anti-Semitism. – Joseph Epstein
By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don’t hesitate. – Joseph Epstein
In recompense, envy may be the subtlest – perhaps I should say the most insidious – of the seven deadly sins. – Joseph Epstein
The decisive moment in the defeat of upper class, capital-S, Society may have come when, in newspapers all over the nation, what used to be call the Society page was replaced by the Style section. – Joseph Epstein
The pleasure of jogging and running is rather like that of wearing a fur coat in Texas in August: the true joy comes in being able to take the damn thing off. – Joseph Epstein
Envy is never general, but always very particular – at least envy of the kind one feels strongly. – Joseph Epstein
One serious drawback about letters is that, in order to get them, one must send some out. When it comes to the mail, I feel it is better to receive than to give. – 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. – Joseph Epstein
