Cathleen Schine Quotes

Lincoln is a genius of language and a brilliant writer who deserves to be seen as part of the canon of great writers in American literature.

One of the great pleasures of reading Tom Wolfe - of still reading Tom Wolfe - is the sense of awe he consistently inspires.

I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.

When all of us are forgotten, people will still be remembering Stephen King.

It's almost uncanny to receive a prize named in honor of Bernard Malamud. I must have been in my early teens when 'The Magic Barrel' was published and I first read it.

I don't think she is underappreciated, certainly not among writers, but Alice Munro is the classic underappreciated writer among readers. It is almost a cliche now to wonder why this living legend is not more widely read.

The sacred books of all the world are worthless dross and common stones compared with Shakespeare's glittering gold and gleaming gems.

I've tried not to treat Shakespeare as a marble giant.

I think that with Bob Dylan around, we're living in an era where we have Whitman presenting new work, we have Dickens presenting new work, we have Yeats and Shakespeare presenting new work. It's that level.

Gore Vidal has been a friend of mine for years, and he's one of the greatest writers in American history.

I'm never going to be Tolstoy.

This is not writing at all. Indeed, I could say that Shakespeare surpasses literature altogether, if I knew what I meant.

Gore Vidal was a man of immense literary talent, some of which he used well, some of which he wasted.

How wonderful it was to sit on a set with Norman Mailer and get to know him.

I think John le Carre is, at 77, the greatest living writer alive. He is a master craftsman.

It would be hard to exaggerate Ernest Hemingway's influence over American literature, but his influence on our lives is probably larger still.

Saul Bellow never took my advice when he was my friend.

Any writer my age almost can't get away from being influenced by Kurt Vonnegut, partially because of his simple, clear way of stating things. To read Vonnegut is to learn how to use economy words.

Men there have been who have done the essayist's part so well as to have earned an immortality in the doing; but we have had not many of them, and they make but a poor figure on our shelves. It is a pity that things should be thus with us, for a good essayist is the pleasantest companion imaginable.

I have never loved any writer as much as Hemingway.

William Packard surely must be one of the great editors of our time.

Cormac McCarthy's language is perfect. He is in my view the greatest living American prose stylist.

For a writer, personal freedom is not so important. It is not individual freedom that guarantees the greatness of literature; otherwise, writers in democratic countries would be superior to all others. Some of the greatest writers wrote under dictatorship - Shakespeare, Cervantes.

I am a genius who has written poems that will survive with the best of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats.

V. S. Pritchett was one of the most admired, fun, talked-about writers of the 20th century: he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his work with prose. He was born in 1900, wrote till he died in 1997, and has been tidily forgotten ever since. This is a real shame.