Eric Bentley on artists and explanations

That it is not always desirable for an artist to become too conscious of what he is doing can be amply illustrated from the career of ... Charles Chaplin. When people explained to Charlie what was going on in his early films, he unloaded their explanations into his later films, which, consequently, are weighed down with explanations. Though the artist, qua artist, does not explain himself, in our day, explanatoriness has become the besetting sin of the cultural climber: Charlie Chaplin thought by explanations—symbolism, message, philosophy—to come up in the world.

Tynan and James: On The Thrills of Theater

Kenneth Tynan: I still get a thrill every time the curtain goes up.

Clive James: I get a thrill every time it goes down.

(conversation at an Observer reception thrown at the Garrick Club by David Astor, the editor, for his journalists and critics, in late 1973, recounted in the preface to James' volume of television criticism, Visions at Midnight.)