It's Funny To Be A Critic.

The Novel Is Always Pop Art, And The Novel Is Always Dying. That's The Only Way It Stays Alive. It Does Really Die. I've Been Thinking About That A Lot.

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.

To Be An American (unlike Being English Or French Or Whatever) Is Precisely To Imagine A Destiny Rather Than To Inherit One; Since We Have Always Been, Insofar As We Are Americans At All, Inhabitants Of Myth Rather Than History.

The Reason Saul Bellow Doesn't Talk To Me Anymore Is Because He Knows His New Novels Are Not Worth Reading.

My Assignment Is What Every Writer's Assignment Is: Tell The Truth Of His Own Time.