I would argue, for perspective's sake, that the arc of a really literary work is precisely that it … - Daniel Mendelsohn

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Oh dear," said Sarah anxiously, "I do wish he wouldn't do these silly things. " I'm sure we all wish that, Sarah," said Marcia sternly. "But unfortunately he has progressed rather further than the silly stage. Evil-minded-scheming stage is more what I would call it.

Daniel Mendelsohn

I would argue, for perspective's sake, that the arc of a really literary work is precisely that it both intensely reflects, and simultaneously transcends the conditions of its making. I would say that is the difference between literature and other kinds of writing. That is what the literary is - it ultimately doesn't matter what his circumstances were. And the thing that you were just saying about being sympathetic to Brontë and the fact that she could only write what she wrote when she wrote it. . . that's true. But look at that novel, which means so much to so many people.

Arc, Mean, People, Reflects, Work, Writing

Same Author Quotes

The writers we absorb when we're young bind us to them, sometimes lightly, sometimes with iron. In time, the bonds fall away, but if you look very closely you can sometimes make out the pale white groove of a faded scar, or the telltale chalky red of old rust.

Fall, Groove, Iron, Lightly, Rust, White

The three most written-about subjects of all time are Jesus, the Civil War, and the Titanic.

Civil, Jesus, Three, War

Closeness can lead to emotions other than love. It's the ones who have been too intimate with you, lived in too close quarters, seen too much of your pain or envy or, perhaps more than anything, your shame, who, at the crucial moment, can be too easy to cut out, to exile, to expel, to kill off.

Cut, Cutting, Envy, Moment, Ones, Pain

I was interested in all kinds of things, whether it be Avatar, Mad Men, Troy, 300, Battlestar Gallactica, or the poems of Horace and Sappho. I always joke about this to my students, who can't quite wrap their mind around the fact that you can have a Ph. D in classics, but not do that full time. I never wanted to write anything with footnotes for the rest of my life. I always think of what I do as the kind of conversation you'd have with somebody, like a good friend, when you've gone and seen a movie together, and you come home and you start talking about it.

Good Friend, Home, Kind, Mind, Movie, Writing

I have nothing but great respect for great scholars. But I was in grad school in the '80s and '90s, at the height of the theory craziness. It had a big part in why I ended up becoming a writer rather than a scholar, because I thought, "I just can't play these games. " I was interested in literature because I loved literature, and so much of the theoretical positioning, at that moment 25 years ago, was antagonistic to literature. You know, trying to show that Jane Austen is a terrible person because she wasn't thinking about colonialism.

Loved, Positioning, School, Theoretical, Thinking, Trying