A biography for Michael Dirdahasn’t been written yet.
“Fiction is a house with many stately mansions, but also one in which it is wise, at least sometimes, to swing from the chandeliers.”
“Born in 1910, Wilfrid Thesiger spent his childhood in Ethiopia, or Abyssinia, as it was then called, where his father was an important and much-admired British official.”
“The savagery and power of Edith Wharton's ghost stories surprised me.”
“Adventurous reading allows one to escape a little from the provincialities of one's home culture and the blinders of one's narrow self.”
“I'm sometimes willing to put in vast, even inordinate amounts of time if I find a project that interests me.”
“Because of Kipling, I've sometimes wondered about keeping a mongoose about the house. But given the cobra population in Silver Spring, Maryland - zero, when last I checked - we hardly need a Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.”
“In truth, I'm not really a cat person. Seamus, the wonder dog, still deeply mourned by all who knew him, was just about the only pet I've ever really loved.”
“At any given moment, I've always assumed that nearly everyone around me was smarter than I was, more naturally gifted, quicker-witted, and probably capable of understanding Heidegger and Derrida.”
“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.”
“I'm an appreciator. I love all kinds of books, and I want others to love them, too.”
“Not all of E. Nesbit's children's books are fantasies, but even the most realistic somehow seem magical. In her holiday world, nobody ever goes to school, though all the kids know their English history, Greek myths, and classic tales of derring-do.”
“Writers keep writing and publishers publishing - it never grows boring.”
“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.”
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that M. Dirda is a sucker for anything bookish in the way of artwork.”
“To an Ohio boy, it represented world-weary Gallic shrugs and Gauloises cigarettes, existentialist thinkers in berets and Catherine Deneuve in nothing at all - French was the language of intellectual power and effortless sex appeal.”
“'The Admirable Crichton' is probably Barrie's most famous work after 'Peter Pan', nearly a pendant to that classic.”
“Since I make my living as a literary journalist, not a book scout, I spend inordinate amounts of time either reading or writing.”
“I find that the Amazon comments often are exceptionally shrewd and insightful, so I'm not going to diss them. But you don't really have any guarantees that what you're reading wasn't written out of friendship or spite.”
“Most scholarly books we read for the information or insight they contain. But some we return to simply for the pleasure of the author's company.”
“I've been slightly obsessed with paper and notebooks. Among my most precious possessions is a small light-blue, breviary-sized volume - four-and-a-half inches wide, seven inches tall - made by a company called Denbigh.”