American - Critic | 1948 -
When I talk to friends and editors about possible projects, especially about projects that might come with a significant cash advance, they usually suggest a biography. Sometimes I'm tempted, but the prospect of spending years researching and writing about someone else's life offends my vanity.
Michael Dirda
LifeWritingFriendsSomeoneVanity
Basically, I think that most people either make too much money or not enough money. The jobs that are essential and important pay too little, and those that are essentially managerial pay far too much.
MoneyPeopleThinkEnoughToo Much
The goal of a just society should be to provide satisfying work with a living wage to all its citizens.
WorkSocietyGoalLivingJustWage
I don't like gross monetary inequities. I firmly believe that the wrong people and the wrong professions are being rewarded, and rewarded absurdly, and that the hardest work the obscenely rich do is ensuring that they preserve their privileges, status symbols, and bloated bank accounts.
WorkPeopleBelieveRichWrongBank
With the possible exception of steampunk aficionados, many reasonable people must view my fascination with Victorian and Edwardian popular fiction - mysteries, fantasy, and adventure - as eccentric or merely antiquarian.
AdventurePeopleViewPossibleMust
People sometimes think that I bring home all these old books because I'm addicted, that I'm no better than a hoarder with a houseful of crumbling newspapers.
HomePeopleThinkBetterSometimes
Sad to say, multi-tasking is beyond me. I read one book at a time all the way through. If I'm reviewing the book, I have to write the review before I start reading any other book. I especially hate it when the phone rings and interrupts my train of thought.
SadTimeHateMeStartReading
I am something of an aficionado of thrift stores. In my youth, I regularly searched their shelves for old books.
I AmYouthOldThriftSomethingAm
No matter how beautiful the paper, artwork, printing, and binding, I'm seldom drawn to a book unless it's by a writer I care about or on a subject that appeals to me.
BeautifulMeBookCareMatterPaper
It is a truth universally acknowledged that M. Dirda is a sucker for anything bookish in the way of artwork.
TruthWayAnythingSuckerArtwork
Mentoring is the last refuge of the older artist. With luck, disciples will keep one's books in print, one's reputation alive.
LuckReputationArtistAliveWill
Literary generations come and go, and each generation passeth away and is heard of no more. In the end, simply the making itself - of poems and stories and essays - delivers the only reward a writer can be sure of. And, perhaps, the only one that matters.
EndGenerationRewardCome And GoGo
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Michael Dirda quotes