All Edward Abbey Quotes
- James Joyce buried himself in his great work. _Finnegan's Wake_ is his monument and his tombstone. A dead end. Buried
- Critics are like ticks on a dog or tits on a motor: ornamental but dysfunctional. Critics
- A critic is to an author as a fungus to an oak. Author
- The response to my books from my East Coast friends has been wildly various, running the gamut from 'bad' to 'very bad.' (Is there another… Bad
- The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will… Beautiful
- Vladimir Nabokov was a writer who cared nothing for music and whose favorite sport was the pursuit, capture, and murder of butterflies. This explains many… All
- It is always dishonest for a reviewer to review the author instead of the author's book. Always Dishonest
- The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink. Add
- My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted. Dog
- My books always make the best-seller lists in Wolf Hole, Arizona, and Hanksville, Utah. Always Make
- Some people write to please, to soothe, to console. Others to provoke, to challenge, to exasperate and infuriate. I've always found the second approach the… Always Found
- There is a fine art to making enemies and it requires diligent cultivation. It's not as easy as it looks. Art
- Too many American authors have a servile streak where their backbone should be. Where's our latest Nobel laureate? More than likely you'll find him in… American
- In art as in life, form and subject, body and soul, are one. Art
- Great art is never perfect; perfect art is never great. Art
- Shakespeare wrote great poetry and preposterous plays. Who really cares, for example, which petty tyrant rules Milan? Or who succeeds to the throne of Denmark?… Barons
- There comes a point, in literary objectivity, when the author's self- effacement is hard to distinguish from moral cowardice. Cowardice
- John Updike: our greatest suburban chic-boutique man of letters. A smug and fatal complacency has stunted his growth beyond hope of surgical repair. Not enough… America
- Fence straddlers have no balls. In compensation, however, they enjoy a comfortable seat and can retreat swiftly, when danger threatens, to either side of the… Balls
- Edmund Wilson was our greatest American literary critic because he was more than a literary critic: He was a fearless, even radical judge of the… American
- It is an author's most solemn obligation to honor truth. If the free and independent writer does not speak truth to power, who will? Doe
- Most of what we call the classics of world literature suggest artifacts in a wax museum. We have to hire and pay professors to get… Artifacts
- In order to write a book, it is necessary to sit down (or stand up) and write. Therein lies the difficulty. Book
- Our suicidal poets (Plath, Berryman, Lowell, Jarrell, et al.) spent too much of their lives inside rooms and classrooms when they should have been trudging… Al
- Great art is indefinable but that's all right; it exists anyway. All