Bad criticism recites rote arguments. The shame of rote arguments isn’t just that they’re cliches, though they are, but that they tend to hide from us why a critic is actually thinking what they’re thinking. Michelle Dean Read Quote
I don’t care about the bare fact that anyone liked or didn’t like a book or movie; they can only interest me in that bare fact by writing an intelligent review. Michelle Dean Read Quote
The forward march of American literature is usually chronicled by way of its male novelists. There is little sense, in that version of the story, that women writers of those eras were doing much worth remembering. Michelle Dean Read Quote
Dan Brown and the ‘Da Vinci Code’ have been around well over a decade now, and to be perfectly honest, both he and it have become a joke. Michelle Dean Read Quote
Vacation reading is not a new concept. Ever since the 19th century, when novels were considered relatively sinful indulgences, leisure and fiction-reading have been closely associated. Michelle Dean Read Quote
We do learn a thing or two from art. It may not be the one-to-one instruction of a moral lesson or the rote learning of a grammatical rule or mathematical concept. But the habits of mind art cultivates are important. Michelle Dean Read Quote
For a long time now, movie characters have generally been articulate, even chatty. Call it the influence of Woody Allen, but we have become used to characters who are well able to explain themselves to others. Michelle Dean Read Quote
Millennials’ has become a kind of modern swearword, a slur directed at people in their early 20s. Michelle Dean Read Quote
Would we even recognize an Oliver Stone production if it didn’t kick up the usual fuss? Michelle Dean Read Quote
