Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.

The actual writing is what you live for. The rest is something you have to get through in order to arrive at the point.

You can have a hangover from other things than alcohol. I had one from women.

The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective.

Great critics, of whom there are piteously few, build a home for the truth.

All reading for pleasure is entertainment.

It is a language which is being molded by writers to do delicate things and yet be in the grasp of superficially educated people.