I Don't Believe In Myths Of Decline

Indeed The Three Prophecies About The Death Of Individual Art Are, In Their Different Ways, Those Of Hegel, Marx, And Freud. I Don't See Any Way Of Getting Beyond Those Prophecies.

We Read, Frequently If Not Unknowingly, In Search Of A Mind More Original Than Our Own.

No One Yet Has Managed To Be Post-shakespearean.

Dark Influences From The American Past Congregate Among Us Still. If We Are A Democracy, What Are We To Make Of The Palpable Elements Of Plutocracy, Oligarchy, And Mounting Theocracy That Rule Our State? How Do We Address The Self-inflicted Catastrophes That Devastated Our Natural Environment? So Large Is Our Malaise That No Single Writer Can Encompass It. We Have No Emerson Or Whitman Among Us. An Institutionalized Counterculture Condemns Individuality As Archaic And Depreciates Intellectual Values, Even In The Universities. (the Anatomy Of Influence)

Real Reading Is A Lonely Activity.