Richard Rodríguez quote: “I was made an example of—by that woman from the Threepenny Review as the sort of writer, the callow, who parades his ed…”

“I don't really like to work with literary allusions very much. I never want to be in a position where I'm saying, "You've got to read a lot of other stuff" or "You've got to have had a good education in literature to fully appreciate what I'm doing."”

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author

... I actually dislike, more than many people, working through literary allusion. I just feel that there's something a bit snobbish or elitist about that. I don't like it as a reader, when I'm reading something. It's not just the elitism of it; it jolts me out of the mode in which I'm reading. I've immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I'm supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I'm pulled out of my kind of fictional world, I'm asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don't like that.

Rukeyser, Rebecca. " Kazuo Ishiguro: Mythic Retreat https://www.guernicamag.com/mythic-retreat/" guernicamag.com interview. 1 May 2015.

“From early on, I was nourished in a literary way. I didn't realize that there was a writer already living in me”

Geling Yan (1958) Chinese writer and screenwriter

Source: "Turning Loss into Beauty: The Tragedies of Geling Yan" in The Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB930264290705115630 (25 June 1999)

“Now, practically all reviewers have academic aspirations. The people from the universities are used to a captive audience, but the literary journalist has to please his audience.”

V.S. Pritchett (1900–1997) British writer and critic

As quoted in "V.S. Pritchett Himself" http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/06/18/specials/theroux-pritchett.html?_r=1&oref=slogin by Paul Theroux in The New York Times (22 May 1977)

“I don't really like to work with literary allusions very much. I never want to be in a position where I'm saying, "You've got to read a lot of other stuff" or "You've got to have had a good education in literature to fully appreciate what I'm doing."… I actually dislike, more than many people, working through literary allusion. I just feel that there's something a bit snobbish or elitist about that. I don't like it as a reader, when I'm reading something. It's not just the elitism of it; it jolts me out of the mode in which I'm reading. I've immersed myself in the world and then when the light goes on I'm supposed to be making some kind of literary comparison to another text. I find I'm pulled out of my kind of fictional world, I'm asked to use my brain in a different kind of way. I don't like that.”

Kazuo Ishiguro (1954) Japanese-born British author

Rukeyser, Rebecca. " Kazuo Ishiguro: Mythic Retreat https://www.guernicamag.com/mythic-retreat/" guernicamag.com interview. 1 May 2015.
Interviews

“There is much else in the literary idiom of nature-philosophy: nothing-buttery, for example, always part of the minor symptomatology of the bogus.”

Peter Medawar (1915–1987) scientist

1960s, Review of Teilhard de Chardin's "The Phenomenon of Man", 1961

“I remember reading an article about Frasier when it was going off the air – a very sad obituary from a TV writer who said that Frasier was such a smart show, and it was for the Mensa set. And he gave an example, where he quoted some line about a woman that Frasier thinks is very mean and he says, “Her idea of tough love is the Spanish Inquisition.””

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

And they thought that was very smart—just because he mentioned something from history.
http://www.dead-frog.com/blog/entry/interview_louis_ck_creator_of_the_sitcom_lucky_louie/ (2006)

“I am not alone. I am free. I no longer have to be a credit, I don't have to be a symbol to anybody, I don't have to be a first to anybody. I don't have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I'd become. I'm me, and I'm like nobody else.”

Lena Horne (1917–2010) American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer

Lena Horne (ca. 1997) in: Susan Ratcliffe (2012) Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, p. 208

“Now it seems to me that we are in a universalising period... If we are to have world peace, we should have an understanding of all the idioms of beauty because the members of humanity who have created these idioms of beauty are going to be a part of us. And I would say that we are in a period when we are discovering and becoming acquainted with these idioms for the first time.”

Mark Tobey (1890–1976) American abstract expressionist painter

Modern Artists in America, R. Motherwell, A. Reinhardt and B. Karpel, First series, New York 1952, p. 28
1950's

“Everyone who has read your book are unanimous in their judgment. They all think it is politically harmful for us. There is no point in giving it for an evaluation to the writers Fedin, Leonov, Ehrenburg, etc. The reviewers could have made a mistake in their aesthetic judgment but they were unanimous in their political judgment, and I have no doubt that their political judgment is absolutely correct.”

Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) Soviet writer and journalist who originally trained as an engineer

1960s

“There is a misconception of tragedy with which I have been struck in review after review, and in many conversations with writers and readers alike. It is the idea that tragedy is of necessity allied to pessimism.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

Tragedy and the Common Man (1949)
Context: There is a misconception of tragedy with which I have been struck in review after review, and in many conversations with writers and readers alike. It is the idea that tragedy is of necessity allied to pessimism. Even the dictionary says nothing more about the word than that it means a story with a sad or unhappy ending. This impression is so firmly fixed that I almost hesitate to claim that in truth tragedy implies more optimism in its author than does comedy, and that its final result ought to be the reinforcement of the onlooker's brightest opinions of the human animal.
For, if it is true to say that in essence the tragic hero is intent upon claiming his whole due as a personality, and if this struggle must be total and without reservation, then it automatically demonstrates the indestructible will of man to achieve his humanity.

“I was made an example of—by that woman from the Threepenny Review as the sort of writer, the callow, who parades his education. I use literary allusion as a way of showing off, proof that I have mastered a white idiom, but do not have the confidence of it.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Richard Rodríguez 127

Related quotes

Related topics