Blake Bailey quotes

“A damnably readable, streamlined, yet deeply researched work. Skipping the ancestors and aftermath of conventional biography, Max gives us the man, his work, and his times-the niceties of which (so complicated, so exquisitely intertwined) Max articulates with, well, Wallace-like lucidity and wit. Above all this is the story of a touching young man who insisted on being something better than simply the smartest person in the room.”
-- Blake Bailey

#Men Quotes #Giving Quotes #Touching Quotes

“The funniest novel you've never read. . . . Afternoon Men is a revelation to sophisticated readers of every stripe, but especially to a certain kind of artist manqu on the brink of discovering that life is a more difficult business than he ever had reason to expect. . . . The subject matter is 'relatable,' as my students like to say. Better still, though, is what you can learn about the craft of writing from this marvelous book. . . . Indeed, if you're looking for a funny, nonportentous Hemingway, then the early Powell is your man.”
-- Blake Bailey

#Book Quotes #Writing Quotes #Men Quotes

“I myself am consummately middle class. We grew up in upper-middle-class suburbs in Oklahoma City, and thats very much the same ethos as what Richard Yates and John Cheever wrote about.”
-- Blake Bailey

#Oklahoma Quotes #Ethos Quotes #Class Quotes

“I'm not an academic; I'm just a bookish Joe who gets passionate about certain writers and suddenly wants to read everything they've ever written and find out why they wrote it.”
-- Blake Bailey

#Passionate Quotes #Want Quotes #Academic Quotes

“My father was a golden boy from a very small town. He won a very prestigious law scholarship to NYU Law School, and there in Greenwich Village, he met my mother, who was very young, fresh off the boat from Germany.”
-- Blake Bailey

#Mother Quotes #Father Quotes #School Quotes

“He (Jeremy Clarkson) is the last man standing on the beach commanding the glaciers' melt waters to go back”

“God never can use any man very much till he has grace enough to forget himself entirely while doing God's work; for He will not give His glory to another nor share with the most valued instrument the praise that belongs to Jesus Christ alone.”

“Men have presented their plans and philosophies for the remedying of earth's ills, but Jesus stands alone in presenting not a system, but His own personality as capable of supplying the needs of the soul.”

“Forget yourself and live for others, for It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Source : Thomas Chalmers (1848). “Select Works of Thomas Chalmers ...: Comprising His Miscellanies; Lectures on Romans; Astronomical, Commercial and Congregational Discourses”, p.153

“There is not a command God gives to His children for which He does not provide the enablement for obedience.”

Source : A. B. Simpson (1984). “Days of Heaven on Earth: A Daily Devotional to Comfort and Inspire”, Moody Publishers

“The science of anti-Semitism finally comes to explain this phenomenon, enlightening further the consciousness of people, fully satisfying their instinct and its violent eruptions thus legitimized by revealing their cause - the parasitism of the Jews. Thus it gives us the formula of the scientific solution for the problem of Judaism, which in order to realize we have only to apply.”

Source : "Ştiinţa antisemitismului ("The Science of Anti-Semitism")". "Apararea Nationala" ("The National Defense") No. 16, Nov. 15, 1922.

“If a boxer ever went as crazy as Nijinsky all the wowsers in the world would be screaming 'punch-drunk.' Well, who hit Nijinsky? And why isn't there a campaign against ballet? It gives girls thick legs”

“He gives me the hairy eyeball, and asks me to help him find his pancreas.”

Source : A. Lee Martinez (2006). “Gil's All Fright Diner”, p.49, Macmillan

“Well, fancy giving money to the Government! Might as well have put it down the drain.”

Source : 1931 'Too Much!'.

“Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.”