The Most Beautiful Prose Paragraph Yet Written

Aesthetic Value Emanates From The Struggle Between Texts: In The Reader, In Language, In The Classroom, In Arguments Within A Society. Aesthetic Value Rises Out Of Memory, And So (as Nietzsche Saw) Out Of Pain, The Pain Of Surrendering Easier Pleasures In Favour Of Much More Difficult Ones ... Successful Literary Works Are Achieved Anxieties, Not Releases From Anxieties.

To Read In The Service Of Any Ideology Is Not, In My Judgment, To Read At All.

Everyone Wants A Prodigy To Fail; It Makes Our Mediocrity More Bearable.

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

I Realized Early On That The Academy And The Literary World Alike - And I Don't Think There Really Is A Distinction Between The Two - Are Always Dominated By Fools, Knaves, Charlatans And Bureaucrats.