7 Quotes & Sayings By Van Wyck Brooks

Van Wyck Brooks was a writer, critic, and Professor of Literature at Columbia University. He was a friend of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and a mentor of John Dos Passos Read more

In addition to his many books of essays, he wrote two novels, The Ordeal of Mark Twain (1951) and The Flowering of New England (1955). In 1943 he published an essay entitled "A Note on the Art of Fiction," in which he outlined a philosophy of art that has since been taken up by many writers.

1
Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background. Van Wyck Brooks
2
Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us. Van Wyck Brooks
3
The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses. Van Wyck Brooks
4
People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding. Van Wyck Brooks
5
The man who has the courage of his platitudes is always a successful man. Van Wyck Brooks
6
Magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And, what is more, they find it everywhere. Van Wyck Brooks