We are all tourists in history, and irony is what we win in wars.
Anatole Broyard

There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience.
Anatole Broyard

The more I like a book, the more slowly I read. this spontaneous talking back to a book is one of the things that makes reading so valuable.
Anatole Broyard

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.
Anatole Broyard

The epic implications of being human end in more than this: We start our lives as if they were momentous stories, with a beginning, a middle and an appropriate end, only to find that they are mostly middles.
Anatole Broyard

The tension between "yes" and "no," between "I can" and "I cannot," makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.
Anatole Broyard

People have no idea what a hard job it is for two writers to be friends. Sooner or later you have to talk about each other's work.
Anatole Broyard

It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.
Anatole Broyard