High Brow Quotes

“The distinction between high and low culture depresses me, dividing all culture like Gaul into high, middle, and low. It’s a very comforting way to think about culture, so long as you think of yourself as highbrow. I think it speaks to, and speaks out of, anxiety about class, especially in the United States, as people from the lower classes begin to participate in the literary arts and intellectual life in an aggressive way. Then folks start claiming there is high, middle and low culture—so know your place, please, and stay there. I don’t think it would have made much sense to Whitman. Some of the distinctions between high and low culture wouldn’t make much sense to someone like John Brown of Harpers Ferry, for example, who thought that Milton and Jonathan Edwards were as available to him as penny broadsides.”
― Russel Banks

“From day one of being a librarian I'd learned that reading carried a lot of baggage, especially among people who didn't read a lot. The same folks who happily devoured television sitcoms and ate frozen pizza might stick their noses in the air about their reading material, stating that they read only nonfiction or literary works. To me, this was not discernment. This was snobbery. A good story was a good story. Period.”
― Angela M. Sanders, The Witch Is Back