The Very Best Of All Merwin: I

I Realized Early On That The Academy And The Literary World Alike

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

Real Reading Is A Lonely Activity.

Shakespeare Will Not Make Us Better, And He Will Not Make Us Worse, But He May Teach Us How To Overhear Ourselves When We Talk To Ourselves... He May Teach Us How To Accept Change In Ourselves As In Others, And Perhaps Even The Final Form Of Change.

The World Does Not Get To Be A Better Or A Worse Place; It Just Gets More Senescent.