I am aware of many things being quite as important as good writing and good reading; but in all things it is wiser to go directly to the quiddity, to the text, to the source, to the essence—and only then evolve whatever theories may tempt the philosopher, or the historian, or merely please the spirit of the day.

Literature is not a pattern of ideas but a pattern of images. Ideas do not matter much in comparison to a book's imagery and magic. The word, the expression, the image is the true function of literature. Not ideas.

... she had painted her lips and was holding in her hollowed hands a beautiful, banal, Eden-red apple.