Quotes from Alfred Kazin

History has become more important than ever because of the to unprecedented ability of the historical sciences to take in man's life on earth as a whole.

To have a sense of history one must consider oneself a piece of history.

A classic is a book that survives the circumstances that made it possible yet alone keeps those circumstances alive.

The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.

When a writer talks about his work, he's talking about a love affair.

Yet it puzzled me that no one around me seemed to take God very seriously. We neither believed nor disbelieved. He was our oldest habit.

Power beyond reason created a lasting irrationality.

Everything seems so small here now, old, mashed-in, more rundown even than I remember it, but with a heartbreaking familiarity at each door that makes me wonder if I can take in anything new, so strongly do I feel in Brownsville that I am walking in my sleep.

The world of today is at the crossroads--[t]he whole scheme of aimless capitalism and the last dregs of traditionalist nationalism are being seen more clearly in their death struggle.

In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratifications, is a curious anticlimax.

One writes to make a home for oneself on paper, in time, in other's minds.

Illiterate and a nervous stammerer, she is nevertheless as resourceful and intuitive as the world was before it learned to read.

On July 25, 1943, the day Mussolini fell, I was with Luce trying to shake off his objection to a long essay I had written for Fortune's philosophy series on the vision of democracy according to Emerson, Melville, Whitman.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time, in others' minds.

Art changes all the time, but it never "improves." It may go down, or up, but it never improves as technology and medicine improve.

One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.

If we practiced medicine like we practice education, we'd look for the liver on the right side and left side in alternate years.

When a writer talks about his work, he's talking about a love affair.