"When he looks back, the critic sees a eunuch's shadow. Who would be a critic if he could be a writer? Who would hammer out the subtlest insight into Dostoevsky if he could weld an inch of the Karamazovs, or argue the poise of Lawrence if he could shape the free gust of life in The Rainbow?"
George Steiner

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English

Sources

"Humane Literacy" (1963).

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Steiner