If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.
Cynthia OzickThe imagination is a species of knowledge, knowledge that can take the form of discovery.
Cynthia OzickWe are so placid that the smallest tremor of objection to anything at all is taken as a full-scale revolution. Should any soul speak up in favor of the obvious, it is taken as a symptom of the influence of the left, the right, the pink, the black, the dangerous. An idea for its own sake - especially an obvious idea - has no respectability.
Cynthia Ozick