The history of creation is but a succession of battles between amateurs of genius-inspired heretics- and orthodox professionals.
Jacques BarzunThe piano is the social instrument par excellence... drawing-room furniture, a sign of bourgeois prosperity, the most massive of the devices by which the young are tortured in the name of education and the grown-up in the name of entertainment.
Jacques BarzunThe danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers
Jacques BarzunThe professionals resemble and recognize each other by virtue of the stigmata that their trade has left upon them. They are like the dog in the fable, whose collar has made an indelible mark around his neck. The amateur is the shaggy wolf whom no dog had better trust too far.
Jacques Barzun