“Robert Frost says in a piece of homely doggerel that he has hoped wisdom could be not only Attic but Laconic, Boeotian even - "at least not systematic"; but how systematically Frostian the worst of his later poems are! His good poems are the best refutation of, the most damning comment on, his bad: his Complete Poems have the air of being able to educate any faithful reader into tearing out a third of the pages, reading a third, and practically wearing out the rest.” AbleReadingPiecesAirWorstReaderPagesThirdsFaithfulCommentEducateSystematicFrostHaving HopeAtticsHomelyRefutationLaconic Author:Randall Jarrell
“The worst kind of novel is one that blames other people for the racial problem in order to make the reader feel good about himself. As if it's only rich white people or Republicans or conservatives who have this disease.” PeopleIfsFeelsKindProblemOrderWhiteNovelRichWorstReaderRepublicanDiseaseBlameFeel Good Author:George Pelecanos
“You have to expose part of yourself to create a character deep enough for readers to care about. You try not to because it's hard and at times shameful, but then when you read those pages over and you see they have no life to them so you throw them away and force yourself to be more honest. So I suppose the answer is I see myself in all my characters, in their best moments and in their worst.” TryingHardEnoughMomentsCharacterCareForceAnswersWorstHonestReaderPagesShamefulBest Moments Author:Adam Haslett
“As a writer of criticism, the consumer thing is the least interesting thing, but as a critic, the single worst thing you can do is send a reader to waste time and money on something - even if it's something you personally love. You have to indicate the reasons why you love it and they'll hate it.” IfsReasonHateCan DoInterestingWorstLove YouReaderWasteCriticismCriticsConsumersReason WhyWasting TimeWorst ThingsInteresting ThingsTime And Money Author:Jonathan Gold
“Finally I do like best of all stories whose necessity is in the implied recognition that someplace out there there exists an urgency-a chaos-, an insanity, a misrule of some dire sort which can end life as we know it but for the fact that this very story is written, this order found, this style determined, the worst averted, and we are beneficiaries of that order by being readers” KnowsEndsFactsStoriesOrderFoundWrittenWorstStyleReaderChaosDeterminedRecognitionInsanityUrgencyImpliedBeneficiaries Author:Richard Ford
“That's one of the reasons I take a lot of consolation in fiction. You have years to work on it. I think that allows you to reach for the best part of your reader instead of a lot of the internet stuff, in which you're kind of reaching for the worst or the most shallow part of your reader.” ThinkingYearsKindReasonStuffFictionWorstReaderInternetReachingShallowConsolation Author:George Saunders