Literary Birthday – 18 March – George Plimpton

George Plimpton Quotes

1. I never understood people who don’t have bookshelves.
2. Art has something to do with the arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.
3. Well, I have to write. A lot of people forget that. They think I’m sort of crazy buffoon who can’t make up his mind what to do in life
4. I have never been convinced there’s anything inherently wrong in having fun.
5. As happens with people who love a thing too much, it destroys them.
6. Oscar Wilde said, ‘You destroy the thing that you love.’ It’s the other way around. What you love destroys you.

George Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, literary editor, actor and occasional amateur sportsman. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.  He was the bestselling author and editor of more than 30 books, as well as editor of the Paris Review for its first fifty years. A selection of his writing is available in The Best of Plimpton. Plimpton was made an officier of the L’Ordre des Artes et des Lettres and a chevalier of the Legion d’honneur, and was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Source for image: Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Plimpton_(cropped).jpg

by Amanda Patterson

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