Best 8 quotes of Nancy Milford on MyQuotes

Francis Scott Fitzgerald really read culture pretty damn clearly. It was he who understood that artistic achievement, really imaginative work, goes where the money is. Where people can afford to buy books and paintings. He linked money - not always in a positive way - to being able to encourage culture.

I had never understood quite so clearly the effective power of Jane Jacob's writing - no, her clear-headed observation - as I did reading “What We See”. Maybe that's really the point of writing. That if you take the time to look, to really observe, then you see what is happening, and, with the clarity of that vision, you can act to save neighborhoods.

Life is impermanent and in the face of that impermanence, cavort! Look death in the eye, tell him you’re as cute as a button, flash a little deviant guile his way, and tell him to go feast on somebody’s else’s sweet flesh.

The hats were nearly all as though made by somebody who had once heard about flowers but never seen one huge muffs of horror.

To be a biographer is a somewhat peculiar endeavor. It seems to me it requires not only the tact, patience, and thoroughness of a scholar but the stamina of a horse.

He fought for his very survival. If he fought dirty sometimes that does not diminish the fact that he refused to give up.

If I can write just one poem that will turn the minds of a few to a more decent outlook...what does it matter if I compose a bad line or lose my reputation as a craftsman?...I used to think it very important to write only good poetry. Over and over I worked it to make it as flawless as I could. What does it matter now, when men are dying for their hopes and their ideals? If I live or die as a poet it won't matter, but anyone who believes in democracy and freedom and love and culture and peace ought to be busy now. He cannot wait for the tomorrow.

I never cry at the theatre. It seems to me that I feel things far too deeply, too deep down in my heart, to---to splash on top!