If I want to have a conversation, I can't have a list of questions, because the second question on the list is going to interrupt the conversation.

- Michael Silverblatt

The art (as opposed to the technology) of reading requires that you develop a beautiful tolerance for incomprehension. The greatest books are the boo…

- Michael Silverblatt

I like to think that at best the interview becomes something like the unaccountable experience of talking to oneself in a mirror.

- Michael Silverblatt

I thought I was going to be a math major. My parents were both accountants and wanted me to major in business. Math was our compromise.

- Michael Silverblatt

People tell me I have the best job in the world, which is true, but I also work with some of the best people in the world.

- Michael Silverblatt

A bleak, black book, it engenders awe and despair. I have read it in its entirety 4 1/2 times, each time finding its resonance and beauty so great as…

- Michael Silverblatt

A beautiful word in the middle of a sentence can sometimes reduce me to tears in an interview, and when I'm reading, too. I've sometimes wondered whe…

- Michael Silverblatt

She taught you how to be a person who refuses anything but the meaningful.

- Michael Silverblatt

In the course of interviewing, I've discovered that if you don't give your guest something to react to, they don't react. They simply say what they'v…

- Michael Silverblatt