[Most interestingly of all, she attempts to show that the novel as a form] has a certain political coloring, because it has to have a certain organization. ... that's a statement that says, 'conformity is not the highest good.' |
A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system. |
accepted his idea that the audience for a quality novel might not be large enough to support the author by means of commerce; this idea is a truism today, but it was new, even revolutionary, for Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and many of their contemporaries. |
Another thing I discovered, |
As soon as you bring up money, I notice, conversation gets sociological, then political, then moral. |
he aspired to produce something simultaneously less vulgar and less formless than the novels of the great Victorians, and ... he wished his work to elevate the novel to the status of art. |
I loved the house the way you would any new house, because it is populated by your future, the family of children who will fill it with noise or chaos and satisfying busy pleasures |
I suggest that it be used like a trunk full of fabric samples or a box of costume jewelry - it is not to be read through from beginning to end in search of a cohesive argument, but to be rummaged about in, in search of something interesting or striking. |
I've been entirely opposed to it since Day one. The next practical thing to do is to get out, and since I don't imagine we're going to clean up after us, the Iraqis are going to have to clean up all the junk we leave behind. |
In a society that promotes conformity, ... novel-reading — one person experiencing both the mind of another person and her own mind experiencing — is a subversive force. |
In my experience, there is only one motivation, and that is desire. No reasons or principle contain it or stand against it. |
It's a gimmick. It's more fun. Usually, you're just standing there, trying to look compelling in some way and not succeeding. It can look like a mug shot. The author can look, not exactly like a deer in the headlights, but a little bit like another night creature scuttling from burrow to burrow. |
It's pure hackwork. ... Here it is: I produce fast, I can do it on a deadline, and I usually have something to say about anything. |
It's pure hackwork. Here it is: I produce fast, I can do it on a deadline, and I usually have something to say about anything. |
Just look at movies. As movies are getting bigger and bigger and more expensive to produce, the screens that people are looking at them are getting smaller. |