Samuel Ayers

“In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

“I wondered how in hell I’d got myself mixed up in a project that couldn’t be carried out. It was like starting to write a novel. When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages a sick sense of failure falls on me and I know I can never do it. This happens every time. Then gradually I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate and I eliminate the possibility of ever finishing.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley: In Search of America

“First novels are a lot like first children. You lavish all your love and attention on them, but you also make all your rookie mistakes on them. First novels teach you how to write. They are your initial opportunity to put into practice everything you’ve heard about long-haul narrative. They’re your primary attempt at trying to walk in the footsteps of the giant (and not so giant) writers you revere and adore.”
― Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

“It is quite possible that the pact that some say exists between god and men contains only two articles, namely, you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
― José Saramago, Cain