One mark of originality that can win canonical status for a literary work is strangeness that we either never altogether assimilate, or that becomes such a given that we are blinded to its idiosyncrasies.

When critics surrender to the prevailing orthodoxy, the author says they adopt the rhetoric of an occupied country, "one that expects no liberation from liberation.

Memory is always in art, even when it works involuntarily.

Spiritual power and spiritual authority notoriously shade over into both politics and poetry.

Characters carrying the playwright's disapproval is a un-Shakespearian burden.