Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.
—Van Wyck Brooks
No one in this country has any root anywhere; we don’t live in America, we board here, we are like spiders that run over the surface of the water.
—Van Wyck Brooks
Topics: America
No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman.
—Van Wyck Brooks
Topics: Writing
Better the fragrant herb of wit and a little cream of affability than all the pretty cups in the world.
—Van Wyck Brooks
Topics: Wit
No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or three icebergs, until he has been lost in the sands of the desert, until he has spent a few years in the House of the Dead.
—Van Wyck Brooks
Topics: Books
A man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them. They like a man who expresses their own superficial thoughts in a manner that appears to be profound. This enables them to feel that they are themselves profound.
—Van Wyck Brooks
Topics: Speakers, Speaking
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- George Edward Woodberry American Literary Critic
- John Churton Collins British Literary Critic
- Bayard Taylor American Poet, Travel Writer
- Diana Trilling American Literary Critic
- Anatole Broyard American Literary Critic
- Harold Bloom American Literary Critic, Author
- Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey Scottish Judge, Critic
- F. L. Lucas English Literary Critic
- Henry Adams American Historian
- Daniel J. Boorstin American Historian
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