241 Quotes by Terry Eagleton

Theology, however implausible many of its truth claims, is one of the most ambitious theoretical arenas left in an increasingly specialized world.

Not all of Derrida’s writing is to everyone’s taste. He had an irritating habit of overusing the rhetorical question, which lends itself easily to parody: ‘What is it, to speak? How can I even speak of this? Who is this “I” who speaks of speaking?

I enjoy popularisation and I think I’m reasonably good at it. I also think it’s a duty. It’s just so pedagogically stupid to forget how difficult one found these ideas oneself to begin with.

It is true that some liberals and humanists, along with the laid-back Danes, deny the existence of evil. This is largely because they regard the word ‘evil’ as a device for demonising those who are really nothing more than socially unfortunate.

I liked early Amis a lot, but I stopped reading him some time ago. I admire Hitchens on literary topics – I think he is very astute. McEwan, I read a bit. But I suppose it’s more the ideological phenomenon that they represent together that interests me.

We are not optimists; we do not present a lovely vision of the world which everyone is expected to fall in love with. We simply have, wherever we are, some small local task to do, on the side of justice, for the poor. – HERBERT MCCABE, OP.

All consciousness is consciousness of something: in thinking I am aware that my thought is ‘pointing towards’ some object.

Culture was now largely a matter of how to keep people harmlessly distracted when they were not working.

You’ve got to have a sense of different audiences. I’m a kind of performer manque – I come from a long line of failed actors!