Eva Hoffman
Laughter is the lightning rod of play, the eroticism of conversation.Collection: Laughter
The more words I have, the more distinct, precise my perceptions become--and such lucidity is a form of joy.Collection: Joy
I never fail to be moved by knowing that the ground on which I walk is layered with the past- with achievement and strife and the repeated passions and conflicts of the human creature, always changing, always the same. Generations passing like grass.Collection: Passion
Anger can be borne - it can even be satisfying - if it can gather into words and explode in a storm, or a rapier-sharp attack. But without these means of ventilation, it only turns back inward, building and swirling like a head of stream - building to an impotent, murderous rage.Collection: Mean
There is nothing like a gleam of humor to reassure you that a fellow human being is ticking inside a strange face.Collection: Humor
The authentic is almost never found by being pursued; but there is no missing it when you are in its presence.Collection: Missing
While we allow the inhabitants of imaginary remote corners the authenticity of savages or sufferers, we rarely suppose them to possess the authenticity of complex, sophisticated perceptions.Collection: Justice
Why look any further if you've discovered complete satisfaction.Collection: Looks
Perhaps, if we don't always have a conscious conscience, we have a subliminal one, from which the memory of past wrongs is not so easily erased.Collection: Memories
It may be that just as tonality recurs in music and realism in painting, so the idea of liberalism recurs in politics-though each time in a different vein.Collection: Ideas
The vision of an entire world becoming just like us is at least as discomfiting as the thought that most of it won't.Collection: Perception
The wonder is what you can make a paradise out of.Collection: Paradise
The worst losses come at night.Collection: Loss