It is only by a great effort that we rouse ourselves to act, to fight, to struggle, to be heard above the wind, to crush flowers as we walk.
~ Janet Malcolm

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Every amateur harbors the fantasy that his work is only waiting to be discovered; a second fantasy-that the established contemporary artists must also be frauds- is a necessary corollary.
~ Janet Malcolm

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The concept of privacy is a sort of screen to hide the fact that almost none is possible in a social universe.
~ Janet Malcolm

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Life, of course, never gets anyone’s entire attention. Death always remains interesting, pulls us, draws us.
~ Janet Malcolm

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What gives journalism its authenticity and vitality is the tension between the subject’s blind self absorption and the journalist’s skepticism.
~ Janet Malcolm

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Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything it is because we are dangerously near to wanting nothing.
~ Janet Malcolm

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Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.
~ Janet Malcolm

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As sleep is necessary to our physiology, so depression seems necessary to our psychic economy.
~ Janet Malcolm

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