“Nearly all the writing of our time is likely to disappear in a hundred years. Certainly most readers - and nearly all critics - feel that [Kurt] Vonnegut started to repeat himself, to grow increasingly self-indulgent and meandering, and to sometimes just blather in his later work. But his books up to "Slaughterhouse-Five" do possess a distinctiveness that will insure some kind of permanence, if only in the history of the 1960s and of science fiction.” IfsFeelsWritingYearsKindBookSelfSometimesGrowsFictionFiveReaderHundredScience FictionCriticsDisappearOur TimeRepeats1960sPermanenceSelf IndulgentSlaughterhousesSlaughterhouse FiveBlather Author:Michael Dirda
“An intelligent man or woman willing to make a career of reviewing fiction is hard to come by ... And the temporaries do the work cheaply. Moreover, continuity may be got at the expense of intellectual arthritis; a reviewer who has been at his grisly task for half a lifetime may stiffen into prejudices of every sort, and become too anchylosed to do better than turn his back to a new wave when it rushes down on him.” MenMayHas BeensHardTurnsHalfFictionCareersWillingIntellectualTasksPrejudiceIntelligentLifetimeCriticsWaveExpensesContinuityReviewersIntelligent ManArthritis Author:Storm Jameson
“Critics have been amusing themselves for a long time by auscultating fiction for signs of heart failure.” HeartLongHas BeensFictionLong TimeCriticsAmusingHeart Failure Book:Parthian Words Source: Parthian Words
“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.” IfsWritingMayStoriesSeemsTodayIndividualFictionEssenceSalvationScience FictionCriticsPhilosopherSavedCoreThriveCrucialCornyFiction Stories Author:Isaac Asimov
“I am in the interesting position of being sometimes skimmed by the critics and called literature and sometimes called historical fiction.” SometimesLiteratureInterestingFictionPositionHistoricalCriticsHistorical Fiction Author:Philippa Gregory
“My writing of fiction comes under a very general heading of those teachers, critics, scholars who like to try their own hand once or twice in their lives.” WritingTryingHandsFictionTeacherCriticsScholarHeadings Author:George Steiner
“I'm really shocked when critics get morally outraged at my fiction because they think I'm condoning what's going on. I never come in as the author and say, "Hey, okay. I'm interrupting the narrator here. I'm Bret Easton Ellis, and I'm the author."” ThinkingFictionOkayCriticsHeyShockedOutragedNarratorsInterrupting Author:Bret Easton Ellis
“The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the quad. And our most impressive critics have commonly been such English majors, and they are squeamish about technology to this very day. So it is natural for them to despise science fiction.” KnowsMayWarFeelingsHateNaturalCitiesFictionTechnologyCollegeProudMajorsBlameScience FictionCriticsPhysicsSuitsGentlemanDullBrownChemistryDespiseEngineersPersistBe ProudImpressiveRespectableCreepyRefrigeratorsEnglish MajorQuads Author:Kurt Vonnegut
“So for a long time, I did a lot of freelance writing in addition to writing fiction and such - I was a food critic for a magazine for a bit, I did writing for nonprofits and political things, I was the editorial consultant for another magazine for a couple years, all sorts of jobs.” WritingYearsLongJobsPoliticalBitsFictionCoupleLong TimeCriticsMagazinesEditorialsWriting FictionConsultantsNonprofits Author:Tod Goldberg
“I'm grateful for the likes of Kundera, Murnane, Markson, Berger, and, in his recent work, Coetzee. But no matter how celebrated they are, critics still consider them askance. Elizabeth Costello, for example, is a great novel, but it got quite a critical panning when it was published. The complaint was that it was simply a book of speeches, without the machinery of conventional fiction. Markson's books are compilations of facts and alleged facts, very artfully.” StillsBookMatterFactsFictionNovelExampleSpeechGratefulCriticsCriticalLikesConventionalComplaintsMachineryGreat NovelsCompilationCoetzee Author:Teju Cole
“I use biography, I use literary connections (as with Platen - this seems to me extremely helpful for appreciating the nuances of Mann's and Aschenbach's sexuality), I use philosophical sources (but not in the way many Mann critics do, where the philosophical theses and concepts seem to be counters to be pushed around rather than ideas to be probed), and I use juxtapositions with other literary works (including Mann's other fiction) and with works of music.” WayIdeasUseSeemsFictionSourceConceptsAppreciateConnectionsPhilosophicalCriticsIncludingSexualityHelpfulBiographiesNuanceThesisJuxtapositionLiterary Works Author:Philip Kitcher
“It's my experience that people don't think of fiction writing as being as intellectually serious as other kinds of writing in academia and so without a career as a critic or essayist you can be treated as something of a spiritual medium - a fraud - for "just" writing fiction.” PeopleThinkingWritingKindSpiritualFictionCareersSeriousCriticsTreatedMediumsFraudAcademiaFiction WritingWriting FictionEssayists Author:Alexander Chee
“Stephen King writes mass fiction but gets reviewed by the New York Times and writes for the New Yorker. Critics say to me, "Shut up and enjoy your money," and I think, OK, I'll shut up and enjoy my money, but why does Stephen King get to enjoy his money and get reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Sunday Book Review?” ThinkingWritingDoeBookEnjoyFictionNew YorkKingsMassCriticsSundayReviewsShut UpNew York TimesNew YorkersBook Review Author:Jennifer Weiner