“Critics are to authors what dogs are to lamp-posts.”

“He smiled like a sun lamp.”

“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post what it feels about dogs."[Time Magazine, October 31, 1977]”

“We are culturally predisposed to sheltering criticism from criticism; we have enshrined the iconoclast”

“We might miss the sign or we may be unable to read the expression, but it is almost a contradiction in terms to say that a dog feels something but does not show it. What a dog feels, a dog shows, and, conversely, what a dog shows, a dog actually does feel.”

“This feels like a critical fork in my road-success lies to the left, moral integrity to the right; are they ever on the same road?”

“You know somethin fella i wouldnt board my dog here”