Literary epochs come and go but this wave seems to have frozen in the cold war. - Josephine Herbst

Every period takes stock of the one preceding it and the past that was good enough for the fathers never seems good enough for the children no matter how idyllic it may seem to the great-grandchildren.

It takes a true writer to show us what has been missing in our lives. No one can give the writer an assignment that his own impulse has not bespoken but more than his security should inform him. "The pen," said Kafka to Janouch, "is not an instrument but an organ of the writer's."

There is no such thing as a writer untouched by his time. Even the most inner experience is a response to some outside.