Nicholson Baker – 5 Quotes

5 Quotes by Nicholson Baker

I think I am done with Wikipedia for the time being. But I have a secret hope. Someone recently proposed a Wikimorgue – a bin of broken dreams where all rejects could still be read, as long as they weren’t libelous or otherwise illegal.

– Nicholson Baker

Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It is fact-encirclingly huge, and it is idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking and full of simmering controversies – and it is free, and it is fast.

– Nicholson Baker

From my music training, I knew that, some Spanish rhythms apart, 5/4 is a time signature used only in the modern era. Holst’s Mars from the Planets is 5/4. But if you speak lines of poetry in that pattern you just end up hitting the off-beats. It’s only when you add a rest – a sixth beat – that it sounds as it surely should sound.

– Nicholson Baker

So I really began as a failed poet – although when I first wanted to be a writer, I learned to write prose by reading poetry.

– Nicholson Baker

When I really want to be soothed and reminded of why people bother to fiddle with sentences, I often read poetry.

– Nicholson Baker