A reviewer’s lot is not always an easy one. I can remember flogging myself to finish Harold Brodkey’s ‘The Runaway Soul’ despite the novel’s consummate, unmitigated tedium. Michael Dirda Read Quote
Close friends, or those in my pay, sometimes call me a literary polymath, while others say that I’m just a shallow dilettante, superficial and breezy, with a faux-naif style. Michael Dirda Read Quote
Mentoring is the last refuge of the older artist. With luck, disciples will keep one’s books in print, one’s reputation alive. Michael Dirda Read Quote
It is a truth universally acknowledged that M. Dirda is a sucker for anything bookish in the way of artwork. Michael Dirda Read Quote
I am something of an aficionado of thrift stores. In my youth, I regularly searched their shelves for old books. Michael Dirda Read Quote
On any given day, I’m likely to be working at home, hunched over this keyboard, typing Great Thoughts and Beautiful Sentences – or so they seem at the time, like those beautifully flecked and iridescent stones one finds at the seashore that gradually dry into dull gray pebbles. Michael Dirda Read Quote
The goal of a just society should be to provide satisfying work with a living wage to all its citizens. Michael Dirda Read Quote
Digital texts are all well and good, but books on shelves are a presence in your life. As such, they become a part of your day-to-day existence, reminding you, chastising you, calling to you. Plus, book collecting is, hands down, the greatest pastime in the world. Michael Dirda Read Quote
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. Michael Dirda Read Quote
