Phil Klay Quotes

The study of literature threatens to become a kind of paleontology of failure, and criticism a supercilious psychoanalysis of authors.

The writer studies literature, not the world. He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write.

Writers themselves benefit from all helpful information about their task and methods. Readers, in turn, can have both their understanding and appreciation of literature enhanced by information about the writer's work.

I don't read novels, but my semiotics study influenced everything about the way I read and edit and write.

The MFA program did one great thing for me: It taught me how to be a better reader and critic. Nothing I wrote during my time at Columbia remains - but learning how to really deconstruct a work of fiction - that, of course, is a permanent part of me now.

I think technique can be taught but I think the only way to learn to write is to read, and I see writing and reading as completely related. One almost couldn't exist without the other.

I was an English major in college!

I am waiting impatiently for the day when beleaguered, like-minded academics can order James Wolcott's collected essays for their classes.

I graduated with an English degree and worked for awhile in academic publishing.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

I studied philosophy, religious studies, and English. My training was writing four full-length novels and hiring an editor to tear them apart. I had enough money to do that, and then rewriting and rewriting and rewriting.

I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature.

I have a slightly bad back, which has made an enormous contribution to American literature.

The Longstockings are eight children's and young adult writers. We all came out of the New School MFA program, and we meet regularly to critique each other's work.

I was an English major in college with minors in Fine Arts and Humanities.

If people aren't creating literature, there would be nothing for people to criticize.

In the old days of literature, only the very thick-skinned - or the very brilliant - dared enter the arena of literary criticism. To criticise a person's work required equal measures of erudition and wit, and inferior critics were often the butt of satire and ridicule.

You learn to write by reading, and my experiences and tastes as a reader are pretty wide.

When I'm working on a novel of my own, I try to read mostly nonfiction, although sometimes I break down and peek at something else.

I've always loved brainstorming with other writers, and I consider having my work critiqued a part of that brainstorming.

I was an English major in college, and then I went to graduate school in English at the University of North Carolina for three years.

The question of manuscript changes is very important for literary criticism, the psychology of creation and other aspects of the study of literature.

My master's degree was in English literature.

I think that, in principle, a workshop is such a beautiful idea - an environment in which writers who are collectively apprenticed to the craft of writing can come together in order to collectively improve.

I wish I had read more and majored in literature rather than theatre. I think I would have been a better artist for it. I am trying to play catch-up now.