Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazin
Alfred Kazinwas an American writer and literary critic, many of whose writings depicted the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth5 June 1915
CountryUnited States of America
Alfred Kazin quotes about
writing genius singularity
What happens whenever we convert a writer into a symbol is that we lose the writer himself in all his indefeasible singularity, his particular inimitable genius.
home writing mind
One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time, in others' minds.
writing order ideas
The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.
alternate american-critic education liver medicine practiced side
If we practiced medicine like we practice education, we'd look for the liver on the right side and left side in alternate years.
american-critic home time writes
One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds.
men history historical
History has become more important than ever because of the to unprecedented ability of the historical sciences to take in man's life on earth as a whole.
art technology medicine
Art changes all the time, but it never "improves." It may go down, or up, but it never improves as technology and medicine improve.
imagination needs haunting
What need had the businessman to scribble or philosophize when he dominated the imagination of his time and the frantic materialism that was his principle of existence had become the haunting central figure in contemporary life?
death years dying
A year after Hemingway died on the front page, Faulkner went off after a binge, as if dying was nobody's business but his own.
beautiful feelings
Altogether beautiful in the power of its feeling. As beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway.
practice medicine years
If we practiced medicine like we practice education, wed look for the liver on the right side and left side in alternate years.
society tragedy development
The conviction of tragedy that rises out of his [John Dos Passos's] work is the steady protest of a sensitive democratic conscience against the tyranny and the ugliness of society, against the failure of a complete human development under industrial capitalism.
talking affair love-affair
When a writer talks about his work, he's talking about a love affair.
reading ideas long
I liked reading and working out my ideas in the midst of that endless crowd walking in and out of the (library) looking for something. I, too, was seeking fame and fortune by sitting at the end of a long golden table next to the sets of American authors on the open shelves.