Leslie Fiedler

"All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science."

"I have, I admit, a low tolerance for detached chronicling and cool analysis."

"When I was 12 years old, someone took me to see Martha Graham. It was nothing like what I thought of as serious dancing and even then I knew I was having a great experience. It was as if somebody was moving through space like no one ever did before."

"Hemingway seems to be in a funny position. People nowadays can't identify with him closely as a member of their own generation, and he isn't yet historical."

"I think the pattern of my essays is, A funny thing happened to me on my way through Finnegans Wake."

"It's funny to be a critic."