studs terkel called him "a critic from whom i learned about my own books." terkel told the nbcc's elizabeth taylor: "he speaks truth to power with a style that is all his own – leonardian. he is a throwback to a great tradition. he has been a literary critic in the noblest sense of the word, where you didn't determine whether a book was 'good or bad' but wrote with a point of view of how you should read the book."