We Read To Find Ourselves,

The World Does Not Get To Be A Better Or A Worse Place; It Just Gets More Senescent.

Not A Moment Passes These Days Without Fresh Rushes Of Academic Lemmings Off The Cliffs They Proclaim The Political Responsibilities Of The Critic, But Eventually All This Moralizing Will Subside.

The True Use Of Shakespeare Or Of Cervantes, Of Homer Or Of Dante, Of Chaucer Or Of Rabelais, Is To Augment One's Own Growing Inner Self. . . . The Mind's Dialogue With Itself Is Not Primarily A Social Reality. All That The Western Canon Can Bring One Is The Proper Use Of One's Own Solitude, That Solitude Whose Final Form Is One's Confrontation With One's Own Mortality.

I Don't Believe In Myths Of Decline Or Myths Of Progress, Even As Regards The Literary Scene.

We Can Be Reluctant To Recognize How Much Of Our Culture Was Literary, Particularly Now That So Many Of The Institutional Purveyors Of Literature Happily Have Joined In Proclaiming Its Death. A Substantial Number Of Americans Who Believe They Worship God Actually Worship Three Major Literary Characters: The Yahweh Of The J Writer (earliest Author Of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers), The Jesus Of The Gospel Of Mark, And Allah Of The Koran.