(1915–1998)
U.S. writer and literary critic“This book is not a journal; it is an exercise-book, a disorderly pile of shavings.”
more infosource: May 18, 1944 entry in Alfred Kazin’s Journals, selected and edited by Richard M. Cook (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2011), 61.
buy on Amazon
category: fragment, journal, writing
medium: Journal
“Why I miss the trolley cars. Because unlike everything and everybody else in the U.S. they did not swerve from their ancient path. And because as a boy (thousands of years ago) I went to Coney Island in a trolley car, and saw grass growing between the tracks and because it was an open trolley, with the conductor on the side hopping from row to row to collect his fares (his left arm holding the rail as he hopped) and because it seemed to me then (as does not happen now on the bus) that the other passengers were all my family, all Brooklyn. And because as we neared the sea, and could see its blue glare on the surface, everyone (at least in the back row) burst out singing.”
more infosource: May 21, 1984 entry in Alfred Kazin’s Journals, selected and edited by Richard M. Cook (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2011), 504.
buy on Amazon
category: Brooklyn, childhood, community, joy, ocean, sea, technology, trolley car
medium: Journal
“We moved today to 415 Central Park West. Enormous business of packing and unpacking my books, which I have been carrying on my back for so many years. Lord, how I would like to get free of all these things sometime. I date my maturity from the day I realized there were books I could get along without.”
more infosource: November 18, 1948 entry in Alfred Kazin’s Journals, selected and edited by Richard M. Cook (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2011), 124.
buy on Amazon
category: book, moving house, stuff
medium: Journal
“Beware of a writer quoting too much; he may be quoting all he knows.”
more infosource: January 8, 1941 entry, Alfred Kazin’s Journals, selected and edited by Richard M. Cook (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 23.
buy on Amazon
view on Google Books
category: beware, quotation, writer
medium: Journal
notes: via Dwight Garner's Twitter feed
Alfred Kazin