Author

America is the big subject of the second half of the 20th century, tackled in one form or another by all the great American male writers. You could make a case for saying that it was the only game in town - from Bellow to Roth to Updike to Richard Ford - America was more or less explicitly the leitmotif.

From Justin Cartwright

A connection between poetry and blindness is a classical trope.

From Justin Cartwright

'Homer and Langley' is the work of E. L. Doctorow's old age. There are fewer Homeric references than you might have expected, given that the narrator is called Homer Collyer and is blind, although, like the classical Homer, not born blind.

From Justin Cartwright

Homer Collyer's chosen form of self-expression is the piano, although late in life, when his hearing also goes, he takes to writing.

From Justin Cartwright

Personally, I have detested Gordon Brown since the moment in 2001 when he tried to make cheap capital out of the Laura Spence affair; as his troubles have piled up, I have felt no sympathy for him at all.

From Justin Cartwright

There was loose talk of Enron management practices and reminders of a scandal at the University of Toronto, when a big donor corporation, Eli Lilly, was said to have vetoed the appointment of an academic who doubted the effectiveness of Prozac.

From Justin Cartwright

The Bodleian Library, next to the Sheldonian, is one of the great libraries of the world. As well as holding most of the books printed in England since the first quarter of the 17th century, it houses priceless printed texts, manuscripts, and collections.

From Justin Cartwright

The Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford is an astonishing building, designed by Christopher Wren. Its painted ceiling has just been restored so that the darkish miasma that was Robert Streeter's original allegory of truth and light striking the university is now bright with playful cherubs and lustrous clouds.

From Justin Cartwright

'The Infinities' is a shortish book but densely loaded with Nabokovian slyness, gorgeous imagery, and disturbing insights into what it means to be mortal.

From Justin Cartwright

As I read 'The Infinities', with its magical, playful richness, its sensuous delight in the power of language to convey the strangeness and beauty of being human, I wondered if J. M. Coetzee, with his bleak, pared-down, elemental view of the world, had ever read a Banville and, if he had, whether he had envied him his astonishing powers.

From Justin Cartwright

Justin Cartwright

Notable Quotes

Authors with Similar Views

James McBride

Elaine Pagels

Leo Burnett

Robert Fitzgerald

Damon Galgut

Authors with Opposing Views

Mark Twain

Richard Attenborough

Bernard Arnault

Caroll Spinney

Charles Peguy