For years they have been using the role of 'sex object' as a cover while they spied out the land.

The tension between 'yes' and no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot,' makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.

The more I like a book, the more slowly I read. this spontaneous talking back to a book is one of the things that makes reading so valuable.

Ruefulness is one of the classical tones of American fiction. It fosters a native, deglamorized form of anxiety.

A book is meant not only to be read, but to haunt you, to importune you like a lover or a parent, to be in your teeth like a piece of gristle.

I feel about lending a book the way most fathers feel about their daughters living with a man out of wedlock.

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.