“You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do–and they don’t. They have prejudices. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they’ve taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can’t understand why people read them and why they are taught. The library, on the other hand, has no biases. The information is all there for you to interpret. You don’t have someone telling you what to think. You discover it for yourself. ”
Ray Bradbury, interviewed by Sam Weller (The Paris Review, Spring 2010, courtesy of Parabasis)
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
An ArtsJournal Blog