Greil Marcus

When I listen to Joy Division, it doesn't sound particularly English. ”

Bob Dylan continues to release odd and unsettling records, and to do odd and unsettling things on stage. So the term 'still' seems meaningless to me. But the real answer is simple: I listen to Bob Dylan for pleasure more than I listen to anyone else for pleasure. ”

I tend not to meet the people I write about because I'm not really interested in the people I write about as people. I don't want to know about their family life. I don't want to know about their bad habits or their good deeds. I'm interested in their work. ”

The Sixties are most generously described as a time when people took part - when they stepped out of themselves and acted in public, as people who didn't know what would happen next, but who were sure that acts of true risk and fear would produce something different from what they had been raised to take for granted. ”

I'm a fan of Oliver Stone. I like his movies, I like his excess, and I think he has a great capacity for empathy and it comes out more powerfully in this movie than in any of his other films, even the formal 'I'm identifying with the underdog' movies like 'Born on the Fourth of July.' ”

I learned that when something just has to be said to move the discussion along, or broaden it or deepen it, if I can just keep my mouth shut for five minutes a student will say it. So for me a lot of teaching is about keeping my mouth shut. ”

Perhaps the most pernicious strain of contemporary criticism says one thing before it says anything else, says it to whatever historical event or cultural happenstance is supposedly at issue: 'You can't fool me.' ”

I learned a long time ago that not becoming friendly with the people you write about is a way to maintain your freedom to say whatever you damn well please. ”

When you celebrate somebody's bad work on the terms that define their good work, how can that artist have anything but contempt for an audience that can't tell the good from the bad? ”