Today's shocks are tomorrow's conventions.
That is the point of quotations. One can use another's words to be insulting.
... success always worries academics, when it moves into the popular world.
It's hard to be happy, and safe, and applauded in a miserable world.
Male friends do not always face each other; they stand side by side, facing the world.
A literary academic can no more pass a bookstore than an alcoholic can pass a bar.