Real reading is a lonely activity.

Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.

The most beautiful prose paragraph yet written by any American.

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

It is hard to go on living without some hope of encountering the extraordinary.

Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. He exists in all languages. He is put on the stage everywhere. Everyone feels that they are represented by him on the stage.

At our present bad moment, we need above all to recover our sense of literary individuality and of poetic autonomy.

Read deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and reads.

Reading well is one of the greatest pleasures that solitude can afford you.

The art and passion of reading well and deeply is waning, but [Jane] Austen still inspires people to become fanatical readers.

Deceptions of the senses are the truths of perception.

So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.

If I do not speak in a language that can be understood there is little chance for a dialogue.

This is one bar you should take home.

The only thing you have then to believe in is your craft.

We take life too lightly and sport too seriously.

When you bring an idea that has no merit to me, and you ask me to comment on it, I'm going to tell you it has no merit.

The by-product of fewer technical support issues is also an increase in customer satisfaction, which can be reflected in reduced subscriber churn.

I do think there is a lack of modernity at the moment - and I don't even like that word, modernity, anymore. There aren't enough designers today anyway - there are more stylists.

When you retire you go from Who's Who to Who's That?