Van Wyck Brooks
Van Wyck Brooks
Van Wyck Brookswas an American literary critic, biographer, and historian...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCritic
Date of Birth16 February 1886
CountryUnited States of America
writing important territory
The writer is important only by dint of the territory he colonizes.
self-esteem ancestry heredity
Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.
jobs men giving
If men were basically evil, who would bother to improve the world instead of giving it up as a bad job at the outset?
religious ignorance political
There is no stopping the world's tendency to throw off imposed restraints, the religious authority that is based on the ignorance of the many, the political authority that is based on the knowledge of the few.
views point-of-view
Once you have a point of view all history will back you up.
successful men he-man
The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man.
beautiful writing rainy-day
As against having beautiful workshops, studies, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day.
people sides serious
Earnest people are often people who habitually look on the serious side of things that have no serious side.
book mind said
The American mind, unlike the English, is not formed by books, but, as Carl Sandburg once said to me, by newspapers and the Bible.
book years two
No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or three icebergs, until he has been lost in the sands of the desert, until he has spent a few years in the House of the Dead.
want vivid talent
Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background.
war creativity men
The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses.
fun successful men
A man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them. They like a man who expresses their own superficial thoughts in a manner that appears to be profound. This enables them to feel that they are themselves profound.
mean standards worldly
Nothing is sadder than having worldly standards without worldly means.