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.

There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.

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

Great writing is always rewriting or revisionism, and is founded on a reading that clears space for the self.

Reviewing bad books is bad for the character – WH Auden

A poem, novel, or play acquires all of humanity's disorders, including the fear of mortality

One reads for oneself and for strangers.