Art Spiegelman Quotes

Shakespeare didn't work at all for me.

A good novelist pays attention to his characters. A good biographer pays attention to the documents before her. A good critic pays close attention to the thing she's brought to evaluate.

Let us consider the critic, therefore, as a discoverer of discoveries.

A literary critic is someone who can't write, but who loves to show he would have been a wonderful writer if only he could!

I don't know what to say about literary critics. I think it's probably best to say nothing.

I was an English major, so I love discussing possibilities and alternate theories.

Out of respect to writers, you have to read the book in the way in which the author visualised it going out into the world.

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

I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having to read a poem twice. Or even a book.

A critic is a legless man who teaches running.

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

There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised.

William Shakespeare was a brilliant writer and he only wrote the truth. So, if I don't believe it, I have to work really hard to see what that truth is so that I do; that's the only way I can make it believable for the audience.

Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding.

When reading fiction, we cannot automatically assume that what we read is fact.

We're not just writers; we're readers probably more than anything else. That's how you learn how to write and how you learn to appreciate good writing: by reading.

In reading, we are both scientists and poets.

It is easy to criticize an author, but difficult to appreciate him.

Nothing frustrates me more than someone who reads something of mine or anyone else's and says, angrily, 'I don't buy it.' Why are they angry? Good writing does not succeed or fail on the strength of its ability to persuade. It succeeds or fails on the strength of its ability to engage you, to make you think, to give you a glimpse into someone else's head—even if in the end you conclude that someone else's head is not a place you'd really like to be.

We cannot understand without wanting to understand, that is, without wanting to let something be said...Understanding does not occur when we try to intercept what someone wants to say to us by claiming we already know it.

REVIEW, v.t. To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it./ Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)/ At work upon a book, and so read out of it/ The qualities that you have first read into it.

Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means.

Reading enables us to see with the keenest eyes, to hear with the finest ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time.

Understanding means throwing away your knowledge.