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

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A poem, novel, or play acquires all of humanity's disorders, including the fear of mortality

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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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All writers are to some extent inventors, describing people as they would like to see them in life.

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One reads for oneself and for strangers.