Melvin Maddocks Quotes

To choose art means to turn one’s back on the world, or at least on certain of its distractions.

Once we thought, journalists and readers alike, that if we put together enough “facts” and gave them a fast stir, we would come up with something that, at least by the standards of short-order cooks, could be called the truth.

Nothing is more idealistic than a journalist on the defensive.

Journalists do not like to report on uncertainties. They would almost rather be wrong than ambiguous.

It is one test of a fully developed writer that he reminds us of no one but himself.

Giving jazz the Congressional seal of approval is a little like making Huck Finn an honorary Boy Scout.