Anyone who writes enough can be rendered an idiot, or a genius, by the simple expedient of direct quotation.
Nov 172022
Writing
If it had been your exact thought you would have used my exact words.
Nov 082022
Almost anything can be put into a work of art, which is the artist’s problem, and almost anything can be got out of it, which is the critic’s.
Nov 042022
Footnote Zero, n. The original source of a dubious, often provably false, occasionally absurd claim repeated in numerous scholarly works.
Oct 282022
Language becomes hackneyed by always being placed in the same sterile surroundings, not by any fault of its own. Dead phrases can be revivified by bashing them against each other in a novel way, like rubbing sticks together to make a fire.
Oct 102022
Parody is the insincerest form of flattery.
Sep 222022
When everyone writes, no one reads.
Sep 132022
You can’t write for your betters, and you shouldn’t write for your inferiors. You might as well write what you want to read.
Aug 252022
Bad times to live can be good times to write.
Aug 222022
The typical academic bibliography buries the three books the author has plagiarized among hundreds that he has scarcely opened.
May 092022
The writer who does not disappoint in person has left too little of himself on the page.