For most men life is a search for the proper manila envelope in which to get themselves filed.

Clifton Fadiman made this remark in the mid‑20th‑century American milieu in which he was best known as an essayist, critic, and public intellectual commenting on modern life’s pressures toward categorization and conformity. The image of the “manila envelope” draws on the everyday bureaucracy of offices, schools, and institutions—systems that sort people into files, labels, and roles. In that setting, Fadiman’s line functions as a satirical observation about how many people come to understand their lives less as open-ended growth than as a quest to find the socially acceptable category—job title, status, ideology, or identity—under which they can be neatly “filed.”

Fadiman’s line satirizes the modern urge to be categorized—by job title, social role, ideology, or résumé—rather than to live expansively. The “manila envelope” evokes bureaucratic filing systems: impersonal, standardized, and ultimately reductive. By suggesting that many people spend their lives seeking the right folder to be placed in, the quote critiques conformity and the comfort of ready-made identities. It also hints at a self-defeating bargain: in exchange for recognition and security, one accepts being “filed away,” becoming legible to institutions but diminished as an individual. The humor sharpens the warning: a life organized around fitting in may end as mere paperwork.