an excerpt from 'introduction: criticism as autobiography' in white woman speaks with forked tongue

p.5

thinking is not the management of thought, as alas it is too often taken to mean these days (ie, in the eighties and perhaps nowadays as well). thinking means putting everything on the line, taking risks, writerly risks, finding out what the actual odds are, not sheltering behind a pretend and in any case fallacious and transparent objectivity. only when it actually thinks is criticism ever a form of writing. only then is it a total commitment to language, the way a good joiner who makes a table will choose the best food he or she can get, attempt to serve the wood well, use his or her skill to best effect, invest everything, body and knowledge, into what the old Compagnons used to call a masterpiece(which cold also be a mistresspiece).