The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, …

- Alfred Kazin

What happens whenever we convert a writer into a symbol is that we lose the writer himself in all his indefeasible singularity, his particular inimit…

- Alfred Kazin

A year after Hemingway died on the front page, Faulkner went off after a binge, as if dying was nobody's business but his own.

- Alfred Kazin

I had to admit that in his old-fashioned way O'Hara was still romantic about sex; like Scott Fitzgerald, he thought of it as an upper-class prerogati…

- Alfred Kazin

Walking I am unbound, and find that precious unity of life and imagination, that silent outgoing self, which is so easy to loose, but which a high mo…

- Alfred Kazin

History has become more important than ever because of the to unprecedented ability of the historical sciences to take in man's life on earth as a wh…

- Alfred Kazin

Altogether beautiful in the power of its feeling. As beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway.

- Alfred Kazin

We never know how much has been missing from our lives until a true writer comes along.

- Alfred Kazin

Modern American literature was born in protest, born in rebellion, born out of the sense of loss and indirection which was imposed upon the new gener…

- Alfred Kazin