The North American intellectual tradition began, I maintain, in the encounter of British Romanticism with assertive, pragmatic North American English - the Protestant plain style in both the U.S. and Canada, with its no-nonsense Scottish immigrants.

Human life began in flight and fear. Religion rose from rituals of propitiation, spells to lull the punishing elements.

In sex, man is driven into the very abyss which he flees. He makes a voyage to non-being and back.

If someone offends you by speech, you must learn to defend yourself by speech.

Madonna remains the most visible performer on the planet, as well as one of the wealthiest, but would anyone seriously say that artistic self-development is her primary motivating principle? She is too busy with Kabbalah, fashion merchandising, adoption melodramas, the gym, and ill-starred horseback riding to study art.

Music never dies. Do we really need another Madonna tour? Does she have to compete with women performers 25 years her junior?

I want young women when they're 14 to start thinking about what they want over the course of their lives. I think it's criminal - child abuse - that they're not told to do this [in school]. Right now it's just sex education and putting condoms on bananas. Girls should be asked to think about what they want in their lives when they're 50, 60 and 70.