Universities are the cathedrals of the modern age. They shouldn't have to justify their existence by utilitarian criteria.

I'm a bit of a deconstructionist myself. It's kind of exciting - the last intellectual thrill left. Like sawing through the branch you're sitting on.

Morris read through the letter. Was it a shade too fulsome? No, that was another law of academic life: it is impossible to be excessive in flattery of one's peers.

Language is the net that holds thought trapped within a particular culture. But if one could only strike the ball with sufficient force, with perfect timing, it would perhaps break through the netting, continue on its course, never fall to earth, but go into orbit around the world.

Every decoding is another encoding.

To read is to surrender oneself to an endless displacement of curiosity and desire from one sentence to another

Life, after all, should go forwards, not backwards.