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Top 20 Michael Dirda Quotes (2025 Update)

Michael Dirda Quote: “Science fiction is, after all, the art of extrapolation.”

1. “Science fiction is, after all, the art of extrapolation.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “As book collectors know all too well: We only regret our economies, never our extravagances.”

2. “As book collectors know all too well: We only regret our economies, never our extravagances.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Throughout history the exemplary teacher has never been just an instructor in a subject; he is nearly always its living advertisement.”

3. “Throughout history the exemplary teacher has never been just an instructor in a subject; he is nearly always its living advertisement.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Make sure your message is clear, yet that you are faithful to its complexity.”

4. “Make sure your message is clear, yet that you are faithful to its complexity.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “What matters are those ordinary acts of kindness and of love, not vaulting ambition with its attendant hubris and smugness.”

5. “What matters are those ordinary acts of kindness and of love, not vaulting ambition with its attendant hubris and smugness.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “The world is a library of strange and wonderful books, and sometimes we just need to go prowling through the stacks.”

6. “The world is a library of strange and wonderful books, and sometimes we just need to go prowling through the stacks.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Whatever Kurt Vonnegut’s ultimate status will be in the annals of literature, he was important to a lot of people right now. That’s what most writers really care about.”

7. “Whatever Kurt Vonnegut’s ultimate status will be in the annals of literature, he was important to a lot of people right now. That’s what most writers really care about.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “As a teenager, I virtually memorized my paperback editions, greedy for insider tips about the literary life. Pound, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Colette, Waugh – they were all there. What has stuck with me the most over the years is their almost universal insistence on the importance of revision, of revising and revising again.”

8. “As a teenager, I virtually memorized my paperback editions, greedy for insider tips about the literary life. Pound, Eliot, Hemingway, Faulkner, Colette, Waugh – they were all there. What has stuck with me the most over the years is their almost universal insistence on the importance of revision, of revising and revising again.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “A writer’s greatest challenge, though, is tone. I like a piece to sound as if it were dashed off in 15 minutes – even when hours might have been spent in contriving just the right degree of airiness and nonchalance.”

9. “A writer’s greatest challenge, though, is tone. I like a piece to sound as if it were dashed off in 15 minutes – even when hours might have been spent in contriving just the right degree of airiness and nonchalance.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “The memory of a tone, the rhythm of an author’s sentences, the sorrow we felt on a novel’s last page – perhaps that is all that we can expect to keep from books.”

10. “The memory of a tone, the rhythm of an author’s sentences, the sorrow we felt on a novel’s last page – perhaps that is all that we can expect to keep from books.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Many people feel most alive, most fulfilled, when they violate the dictates of conscience or even the promptings of their own self interest.”

11. “Many people feel most alive, most fulfilled, when they violate the dictates of conscience or even the promptings of their own self interest.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Despite the rising popularity of the downloadable e-text, I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets, and enjoy seeing rows of hardcovers on my shelves. Many people simply read fiction for pleasure and nonfiction for information. I often do myself. But I also think of some books as my friends and I like to have them around. They brighten my life.”

12. “Despite the rising popularity of the downloadable e-text, I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets, and enjoy seeing rows of hardcovers on my shelves. Many people simply read fiction for pleasure and nonfiction for information. I often do myself. But I also think of some books as my friends and I like to have them around. They brighten my life.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “I sometimes lie awake at night and try to imagine what would be the best period in history to spend one’s seventy-odd years.”

13. “I sometimes lie awake at night and try to imagine what would be the best period in history to spend one’s seventy-odd years.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “As with a love affair, the battered heart needs time to recover from a good work of fiction.”

14. “As with a love affair, the battered heart needs time to recover from a good work of fiction.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “I also think of some books as my friends and i like to have them around. They brighten my life.”

15. “I also think of some books as my friends and i like to have them around. They brighten my life.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Fiction is a house with many stately mansions, but also one in which it is wise, at least sometimes, to swing from the chandeliers.”

16. “Fiction is a house with many stately mansions, but also one in which it is wise, at least sometimes, to swing from the chandeliers.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Order and surprise: these are two intertwined elements that make for any great library or collection.”

17. “Order and surprise: these are two intertwined elements that make for any great library or collection.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Best selling authors are always worth listening to, even if you choose to ignore their advice.”

18. “Best selling authors are always worth listening to, even if you choose to ignore their advice.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “A good rule of thumb is: Pack twice as many books as changes of underwear.”

19. “A good rule of thumb is: Pack twice as many books as changes of underwear.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “I have now and again tried to imagine the perfect environment, the ideal conditions for reading: A worn leather armchair on a rainy night? A hammock in a freshly mown backyard? A verandah overlooking the summer sea? Good choices, every one. But I have no doubt that they are all merely displacements, sentimental attempts to replicate the warmth and snugness of my mother’s lap.”

20. “I have now and again tried to imagine the perfect environment, the ideal conditions for reading: A worn leather armchair on a rainy night? A hammock in a freshly mown backyard? A verandah overlooking the summer sea? Good choices, every one. But I have no doubt that they are all merely displacements, sentimental attempts to replicate the warmth and snugness of my mother’s lap.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “Some of us, alas, are destined to find our escapes in novels, not life.”

21. “Some of us, alas, are destined to find our escapes in novels, not life.”

— Michael Dirda

Michael Dirda Quote: “I am shocked that we seemed to have learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from Vietnam.”

22. “I am shocked that we seemed to have learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from Vietnam.”

— Michael Dirda

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