The novel doesn't come into existence until certain methods of reproducing fiction come along.

I gave up writing blurbs because you make one friend and 200 enemies.

Of the female black authors, I really like Morrison's early books a lot. But she's really become so much a clone of Faulkner. He did it better.

The reason Saul Bellow doesn't talk to me anymore is because he knows his new novels are not worth reading.

Hemingway seems to be in a funny position. People nowadays can't identify with him closely as a member of their own generation, and he isn't yet historical.

Jane Austen is at the end of the line that begins with Samuel Richardson, which takes wonder and magic out of the novel, treats not the past but the present.

It's funny to be a critic.