Michael Dirda Quotes
Most popular Michael Dirda Quotes
One of the ancient goals of criticism was called the correction of taste.
The world is a library of strange and wonderful books, and sometimes we just need to go prowling through the stacks.
In a good autobiography the chaos of life's experience (truth) must be given some kind of order or pattern (design).
Throughout history the exemplary teacher has never been just an instructor in a subject; he is nearly always its living advertisement.
Most serious novels are machines for producing anxiety. Pick up a classic or a current best seller, and you'll find people in trouble.
Certainly if there is any worldly talent worth cultivating, it's a sense of humor. To possess a cheerful outlook may be the greatest gift of the gods, the distant second best being a taste for irony.
Critics and reviewers can be loosely divided into two camps: Those who never let you forget that they are judge, jury, and if need be, executioner; and those who humble themselves before a poem or novel, waiting for it to reveal its secrets to them.
