Giovanni Guareschi Quotes

The author may not interpret. But he must tell why and how he wrote his book.

Be sure that you go to the author to get at his meaning, not to find yours.

Roth Unbound is filled with intelligent readings and smart judgments. Because of the author's sympathy and sharp mind, it offers real insight into the creative process itself, and into Philip Roth's high calling as a great American artist. The book is, in some ways, a radical rereading of Roth's life and his work. It is impossible, by the end, not to feel a tender admiration for Roth as a novelist and indeed for Claudia Roth Pierpont as an empathetic and brilliant critic.

When he looks back, the critic sees a eunuch's shadow. Who would be a critic if he could be a writer? Who would hammer out the subtlest insight into Dostoevsky if he could weld an inch of the Karamazovs, or argue the poise of Lawrence if he could shape the free gust of life in The Rainbow?

Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself.

Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself.

A perfect judge will read each word of wit with the same spirit that its author writ.

I love it when people want to interpret my books.

I love 'Memory Keeper's Daughter,' but in some ways I think 'The Lake of Dreams' is a stronger book. I was able to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's all you can ever do as a writer. From there on you have no control over it.

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.

As a writer, I'm not convinced that we are the best equipped to understand how we go about the business of literary production.

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

Sometimes I read reviews, and without exception I will read critical essays that are sent to me. The critical essays are interesting on their own terms.

I don't think of myself as a critic at all. I'm a reviewer and essayist. I mainly hope to share with others my pleasure in the books and authors I write about, though sometimes I do need to cavil and point out shortcomings.

The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.

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.

Man’s writing has but one true sense, which is that which the Author meant when he writ it.

I don't think that books are wondrous, magical things that come from nowhere. It's important that a book has clues about where and how it was written.

What I realized is that my interest in literature has more deeply structured my practice than I thought.

I absolutely wasn't going to write a book if it was just going to be about punk.

Like many writers, I'm usually more interested in reading about authors than their actual works. We're more curious to know how they were written than what they are like to read.

Properly speaking, we learn from those books only that we cannot judge. The author of a book that I am competent to criticise would have to learn from me.

No book, however good, can survive a hostile reading.

It is quite too common a practice, both in readers and the more superficial class of critics, to judge a book by what it is not, a matter much easier to determine than what it is.

When I first moved up to San Francisco to write Where The Wild Things Are, I had a couple moments where I talked to somebody, and they're like, "Oh, I love that book. I love this part of it," or, "This is what it means to me." And it's like, "Well, I don't know. I guess that's not what I'm making the movie about." But very early on, I don't know, we sort of let go of that fear.