John Tiffany Quotes

My life has included a study of Shakespeare and to me it's very natural, but I know that it's not always accessible to other people.

I cannot understate the ability to handle classical texts such as Shakespeare.

Before college, I hadn't voluntarily read anything that might be called literature; I didn't think I'd understand it; I never seemed to understand my English teacher's interpretations of what we read.

Well, 'The Wellspring' was written from 1983 to 1986. And it had a section in the beginning that was poems that began from others' experience.

To what derision should I be exposed from a thousand quarters!- An unlearned female entering the lists of criticism against the mighty Johnson!

I started rereading 'The Dutchman' - I kind of just pulled it off the shelf.

If we took Chaucer's writings at face value, we'd have to conclude he was a complete drip.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

Young screenwriters are always very frustrated when they talk to me. They say, 'How do we get to be a screenwriter?' I say, 'You know what you do? I'll tell you the secret, it's easy: Read 'Hamlet.' You know? Then read it again, and read it again, and read it until you understand it. Read 'King Lear,' and then read 'Othello.'

I'm not that well-versed in literary theory - I don't know what it is.

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.

And people do enjoy the plays at completely different levels. And, likewise, they enjoy the authorship question... at completely different levels.

A lot of writers dwell on their relationships with their mothers, but only a few are worth reading.

Anyone aspiring to literary greatness should read 'New Grub Street' and weep.

In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn't read the one until after I'd written the other.

There was a period... when I used to say, with as much ferocity as I could muster, 'I hate Henry James, and I wish he was dead.' Influence is perdition.

Really important books to me are the classics. I try very hard to read them well - you know, especially once I got serious about writing. So, reading Tolstoy several times - 'War and Peace,' 'The Kreutzer Sonata' - all those were really important to me.

To be able to analyze plays and novels is so relevant to acting.

Every few years, I think, 'Maybe now I'm finally smart enough or sophisticated enough to understand 'Ulysses.' So I pick it up and try it again. And by page 10, as always, I'm like, 'What the hell?'

One should indeed read Pope with his notes available, in the Twickenham edition possibly, to see what a vast amount he did understand about Homer.

I'm not one of those writers who insist they don't read reviews and don't care much about them. I do read them, and I do care about them, and they're not always what you want them to be in an ideal world.

James Agate, a great critic of the day, advised me that the way to learn your job properly was to learn Shakespeare, so I went to Stratford. It really sorts out the men from the boys.

I admire American literature, both contemporary and classic - 'Moby-Dick' is just about the best book in the world - and I admire British literature for its insistence on dealing with social class. It may have been an influence.

Academics love to make theories about a body of work, but each book consumes the writer and is the sum of his or her world.

I've never managed to get very far with Henry James.