Leslie Fiedler

Of the female black authors, I really like Morrison's early books a lot. But she's really become so much a clone of Faulkner. He did it better.

Cooper wrote a novel which is absolutely indistinguishable from Austen, completely from a female point of view, completely English, no sense that he was an American.

The novel is the first art form that is an honest-to-god commodity. That's what makes it different from both high art and folk art.

Jane Austen is at the end of the line that begins with Samuel Richardson, which takes wonder and magic out of the novel, treats not the past but the present.

Writers always know whether you like them or not.

The middlebrow, I hate.

The black situation has changed. They finally realized they're Americans.

Raymond Carver is good. I think he'll be appreciated more and more. He's an easy writer to imitate.

Kafka is still unrecognized. He thought he was a comic writer.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's somebody doing something because I pushed them in that direction.

I liked Camille Paglia. I liked her even better when I heard her talk.

I admire Ginsberg as a poet, despite the fact that he seems not to know when he is being good and when he is bad. But he will last, or at least those poems will last.