I long for the raised voice, the howl of rage or love.

All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science.

It's funny to be a critic.

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.

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

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