List of A. Bartlett Giamatti Quotes

On A Good Day, I View The Job [of President] As Directing An Orchestra. On The Dark Days, It Is More Like That Of A Clutch -- Engaging The Engine To Effect Forward Motion, While Taking Greater Friction.

Baseball Has Undergone And Absorbed A Whole Set Of Dislocations.

Some Of My Academic Friends Think Ive Fallen From A Very Special Grace.

If A Family Is An Expression Of Continuity Through Biology, A City Is An Expression Of Continuity Through Will Amd Imagination? Through Mental Choices Making Artifice, Not Through Physical Reproduction.

I Think That The Young People Today Feel A Tremendous Sense Of Responsibility To Their Brothers And Sisters Because Of The Sacrifices That Most Families Make To Send Their Children To College.

I'm The World's Expert On Sterotypes Held By Academics About Athletes And Held By Athletes About Academics. To Me, Both Of Them Are Caricatures.

On Matters Of Race, On Matters Of Decency, Baseball Should Lead The Way.

The People Of America Care About Baseball, Not About Your Squalid Little Squabbles. Reassume Your Dignity And Remember That You (players During The 1981 Strike) Are The Temporary Custodians Of An Enduring Public Trust.

There's Nothing Bad That Accrues From Baseball.

Winning Has A Joy And Discrete Purity To It That Cannot Be Replaced By Anything Else.

Americans Have Been Remarkably Devoted To The Capacity For Belief, To Idealism. That's Why We Get Into Trouble All The Time. We're Always Viewed As Naive.

A Convention Is A Social Pattern We Have Chosen To Prefer Over Whatever The Raw World Simply Proffers. It Is A Sign Of The Operation Of The Mind, Drawing The Assent Of A Sufficient Number Of Other Minds So That The Agreement Will Be Widely Operative. A Convention Is Not A Custom; A Custom Is A Habit In Which A Sufficient Number Acquiesce. A Custom Can Appear As A Convention, But It Is Really A Lesser Act, The Result Of Passive Acceptance Rather Than Of The Imposition Of Design. It Is The Difference Between Learning To Live By The Annual Flooding Of The River Or By A Calendar.