Language rarely lies. It can reveal the insincerity of a writer's claims simply through a grating adjective or an inflated phrase. We come upon a frenzy of words and suspect it hides a paucity of feeling. — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
Taste speaks through a turn of phrase, a curl of the lip, a shrug of the shoulder: it makes an atmosphere. — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
One great flaw in the reforming passion is that in its eagerness to remedy social wrongs it tends to neglect, certainly to undervalue, the… — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
Modernity consists in a revolt against the prevailing style, an unyielding rage against the official order. — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
I was in a garden at the Rodin Museum. For a few minutes I was alone, sitting on a bench between two long hedges… — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind; it is a way of engaging reality. — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
The most glorious vision of the intellectual life is still that which is loosely called humanist: the idea of a mind committed yet dispassionate,… — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
Could we say that the short short is to other kinds of fiction somewhat as the lyric is to other kinds of poetry? The… — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
“The usual short story cannot have a complex plot, but it often has a simple one resembling a chain with two or three links.… — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
“There is utopia and utopia. The kind imposed by an elite in the name of a historical imperative—that utopia is hell. It must lead… — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
Sometimes ... the short short appears to rest on nothing more than a fragile anecdote which the writer has managed to drape with a… — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
Comedy speaks for civilization; farce bears an ill-concealed, sometimes unconcealed animus against civilization. Often against civility too. — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable. — Irving Howe Copy Share Image
