Janet Malcolm Quotes

• Writing cannot be done in a state of desirelessness.

  Janet Malcolm

  Writing, Done, States

  Janet Malcolm (2013). “The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes”, p.183, Vintage

  47 Copy quote

• Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He is a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse.

  Janet Malcolm

  Trust, Betrayal, Loneliness

  The Journalist and the Murderer pt. 1 (1990)

  21 Copy quote

• The writer, like the murderer, needs a motive.

  Janet Malcolm

  Needs, Motive, Murderer

  Janet Malcolm (2013). “The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes”, p.183, Vintage

  10 Copy quote

• Society mediates between the extremes of, on the one hand, intolerably strict morality and, on the other, dangerously anarchic permissiveness through an unspoken agreement whereby we are given leave to bend the rules of the strictest morality, provided we do so quietly and discreetly. Hypocrisy is the grease that keeps society functioning in an agreeable way, by allowing for human fallibility and reconciling the seemingly irreconcilable human needs for order and pleasure.

  Janet Malcolm

  Agreement, Hands, Order

  "The Journalist and the Murderer". Book by Janet Malcolm, 1989.

  11 Copy quote

• This is what it is the business of the artist to do. Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not pleasing your mother.

  Janet Malcolm

  Mother, Art, Armed Robbery

  Janet Malcolm (2013). “The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes”, p.165, Vintage

  11 Copy quote

• Biography is the medium through which the remaining secrets of the famous dead are taken from them and dumped out in full view of the world. The biographer at work, indeed, is like the professional burglar, breaking into a house, rifling through certain drawers that he has good reason to think contain the jewelry and money, and triumphantly bearing his loot away.

  Janet Malcolm

  Taken, Thinking, Views

  Janet Malcolm (2011). “Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath And Ted Hughes”, p.12, Granta Books

  7 Copy quote

• There are good photographers who might elevate themselves to the ranks of the great simply by burning most of their work.

  Janet Malcolm

  Burning, Might, Photographer

  Janet Malcolm (1997). “Diana & Nikon: Essays on Photography”

  4 Copy quote

• The dominant and most deep-dyed trait of the journalist is his timorousness. Where the novelist fearlessly plunges into the water of self-exposure, the journalist stands trembling on the shore in his beach robe. The journalist confines himself to the clean, gentlemanly work of exposing the grieves and shames of others.

  Janet Malcolm

  Beach, Grieving, Self

  9 Copy quote

• Fidelity to the subject's thought and to his characteristic way of expressing himself is the sine qua non of journalistic quotation.

  Janet Malcolm

  Way, Fidelity, Characteristics

  Janet Malcolm (2011). “The Journalist And The Murderer”, p.146, Granta Books

  7 Copy quote

• I was always trying to take art photographs, but the most interesting pictures were the snapshots. The artsy pictures were boring, always.

  Janet Malcolm

  Art, Always Trying, Interesting

  9 Copy quote

• Poets and novelists and playwrights make themselves, against terrible resistances, give over what the rest of us keep safely locked within our hearts.

  Janet Malcolm

  Heart, Giving, Novelists

  Janet Malcolm (2013). “The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes”, p.70, Vintage

  7 Copy quote

• Malice remains its animating impulse.

  Janet Malcolm

  Impulse, Malice, Remains

  "Iphigenia in Forest Hills". www.newyorker.com. May 3, 2010.

  5 Copy quote

• If you scratch a great photograph, you find two things; a painting and a photograph.

  Janet Malcolm

  Photography, Two, Scratches

  Janet Malcolm (1981). “Diana and Nikon: Essays on the Aesthetic of Photography”

  7 Copy quote

• A lawsuit is to ordinary life what war is to peacetime. In a lawsuit, everybody on the other side is bad. A trial transcript is a discourse in malevolence.

  Janet Malcolm

  War, Law, Ordinary

  Janet Malcolm (2011). “The Journalist and the Murderer”, p.63, Vintage

  12 Copy quote

• All analyses end badly. Each 'termination' leaves the participants with the taste of ashes in their mouths; each is absurd; each is a small, pointless death. Psychoanalysis cannot tolerate happy endings; it casts them off the way the body's immunological system casts off transplanted organs.

  Janet Malcolm

  Ashes, Analysis, Mouths

  11 Copy quote

• The camera is simply not the supple and powerful instrument of description that the pen is.

  Janet Malcolm

  Powerful, Cameras, Description

  Janet Malcolm (1981). “Diana and Nikon: Essays on the Aesthetic of Photography”

  6 Copy quote

• Analysts keep having to pick away at the scab that the patient tries to form between himself and the analyst to cover over his wounds. The analyst keeps the surface raw, so that the wound will heal properly.

  Janet Malcolm

  Trying, Patient, Analysts

  24 Copy quote

• [The] arresting of time is photography's unique capacity, and the decision of when to click the shutter is the photographer's chief responsibility.

  Janet Malcolm

  Photography, Responsibility, Unique

  Janet Malcolm (1997). “Diana & Nikon: Essays on Photography”

  4 Copy quote

• The heavy odds against finding the desired... work of art in the mess and flux of life, as opposed to the serene orderliness of imagined reality, give a special tense dazzle and an atmosphere of tour de force to any photographs that succeed in the search.

  Janet Malcolm

  Art, Reality, Odds

  Janet Malcolm (1997). “Diana & Nikon: Essays on Photography”

  7 Copy quote

• The 'I' character in journalism is almost pure invention.

  Janet Malcolm

  Character, Journalism, Invention

  Janet Malcolm (2011). “The Journalist And The Murderer”, p.147, Granta Books

  4 Copy quote

• The ‘I’ character in journalism is almost pure invention. Unlike the ‘I’ of autobiography, who is meant to be seen as a representation of the writer, the ‘I’ of journalism is connected to the writer only in a tenuous way—the way, say, that Superman is connected to Clark Kent. The journalistic ‘I’ is an overreliable narrator, a functionary to whom crucial tasks of narration and argument and tone have been entrusted, an ad hoc creation, like the chorus of Greek tragedy. He is an emblematic figure, an embodiment of the idea of the dispassionate observer of life.

  Janet Malcolm

  Character, Ideas, Greek

  "The Journalist and the Murderer". Book by Janet Malcolm, March 20, 1989.

  4 Copy quote

• [Richard Avedon's] camera dwells on the horrible things that age can do to people's faces - on the flabby flesh, the slack skin, the ugly growths, the puffy eyes, the knotted necks, the aimless wrinkles, the fearful and anxious set of the mouth, the marks left by sickness, madness, alcoholism, and irreversible disappointment.

  Janet Malcolm

  Disappointment, Eye, Wrinkles

  4 Copy quote

• Journalists justify their treachery in various ways according to their temperaments. The more pompous talk about freedom of speech and ‘the public’s right to know’; the least talented talk about Art; the seemliest murmur about earning a living.

  Janet Malcolm

  Art, Freedom Of Speech, Earning

  Janet Malcolm (2011). “The Journalist And The Murderer”, p.14, Granta Books

  4 Copy quote

• [Y]ou never come right out and admit you have stretched the rules for your own benefit. You do it and shut up about it, and hope you don't get caught, because if you are caught no one or no one who has any sense will come forward and say he has done the same thing himself.

  Janet Malcolm

  Hypocrisy, Done, Benefits

  13 Copy quote

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