[T]he most viciously intolerant campus I ever visited as a lecturer was Brown, where the humanities program has been gutted by a jejune brand of feminist theory and cultural and media studies.

Art is something out of the ordinary commenting on the ordinary.

Pursuit and seduction are the essence of sexuality. It's part of the sizzle.

What is pretty in nature is confined to the thin skin of the globe upon which we huddle. Scratch that skin, and nature's daemonic ugliness will erupt.

I do not believe in God, but I believe God is man’s greatest idea. Those incapable of religious feeling or those (like hard-core gay activists) who profane sacred ground do not have the imagination to educate the young. … Until the left comes to its senses about the cultural power of religion, the right will continue to broaden its appeal.

Every reading is partial, but that does not absolve us from the quest for meaning, which defines us as a species.

Nothing is more hackneyed than the liberal dogma that shock value confers automatic importance on an artwork.