Quotes from Janet Malcolm

What makes classic children's literature so appealing (to all ages) is its undeviating loyalty to the world of the child. In the best children's books, parents never share the limelight with their children; if they are not killed off on page 1, they are cast in the pitifully minor roles that parents play in their children's imaginative lives.

Theory and interpretation, far from threatening works of art, keep them alive.

The writer, like a murderer, needs a motive.

All happy families are alike in the pain their members helplessly inflict upon one another, as if under orders from a perverse higher authority.

People who have never sued anyone or been sued have missed a narcissistic pleasure that is not quite like any other.

Every hoodwinked widow, every deceived lover, every betrayed friend, every subject of writing knows on some level what is in store for him, and remains in the relationship anyway, impelled by something stronger than his reason.

I have read a little of the material he has sent-- trial transcripts, motions, declarations, affidavits, reports... I know I cannot learn anything about MacDonald's guilt or innocence from this material. It is like looking for proof or disproof of the existence of God in a flower- it all depends on how you read the evidence.

I don't go out of my way to be friendly, because it's completely unnecessary. People tell you what they are going to tell you no matter what.

There are good photographers who might elevate themselves to the ranks of the great simply by burning most of their work.

I was always trying to take art photographs, but the most interesting pictures were the snapshots. The artsy pictures were boring, always.

Fidelity to the subject's thought and to his characteristic way of expressing himself is the sine qua non of journalistic quotation.

The journalist cannot create his subjects any more than the analyst can create his patients.

I don't want to manipulate actuality; I want to record it.