Joseph Epstein
Joseph Epstein
Joseph Epstein, also known as Colonel Gilles and as Joseph Andrej, was a Polish-born Jewish communist activist and a French Resistance leader during World War II. He was executed by the Germans...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth9 January 1937
CountryUnited States of America
reading small-numbers people
While reading writers of great formulatory power — Henry James, Santayana, Proust — I find I can scarcely get through a page without having to stop to record some lapidary sentence. Reading Henry James, for example, I have muttered to myself, "C’mon, Henry, turn down the brilliance a notch, so I can get some reading done." I may be one of a very small number of people who have developed writer’s cramp while reading.
reading mean thoughtful
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.
reading sacred serious
The problem for me is that reading is, I won't say a sacred, but nevertheless a pretty serious act.
We know the ideal isn't where the action is.
beer connected football male rest suppose
I suppose it's because beer is connected to football broadcasts and the rest of it. Beer . . . accompanies male activities.
bad good superior talk time
If superior talk is your idea of a good time it's (hell) not really such a bad place to end up
secret way speaking-french
By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don't hesitate.
inspirational adrift realms
Within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.
two lunch phones
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.
sloth knows know-how
I know how deeply slothful I am.
mistake genius sometimes
If geniuses can sometimes make mistakes, cannot the rest of us on occasion be geniuses?
inspirational dream man-of-my-dreams
What distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, and what we do to make them come about.
regret wife terrible
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
people musical training
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