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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 whic...more

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Lawrence will go on burying his own undertakers.

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Greatness recognizes greatness, and is shadowed by it.

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The inventor knows HOW to borrow.

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When critics surrender to the prevailing orthodoxy, the author says they adopt the rhetoric of an occupied country, "one that expects no liberation fr...more

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

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

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Originality must compound with inheritance.

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One mark of originality that can win canonical status for a literary work is strangeness that we either never altogether assimilate, or that becomes s...more

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Reviewing bad books is bad for the character – WH Auden

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Shakespeare and his few peers invented all of us.

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It has always been dangerous to institutionalize hope, and we no longer live in a society in which we will be allowed to institutionalize memory.

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One reads for oneself and for strangers.