American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.

There are only two things to write about: life and death.

Unless you are terribly, terribly careful, you run the danger-- without even knowing it is happening to you-- of slipping into the fatal error of reflecting the public taste instead of creating it. Your responsibility is to the public consciousness, not to the public view of itself.

I have learned that neither kindness or cruelty by themselves, or independent of each other, create any effect beyond themselves.

Sincerity doesn't mean anything. A person can be sincere and be more destructive than a person who is insincere.

American critics are like American universities. They both have dull and half-dead faculties.

All serious art is being destroyed by commerce. Most people don't want art to be disturbing. They want it to be escapist. I don't think art should be escapist. That's a waste of time.