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

I respect a man who can recognize a quotation. It's a dying art.

Any language is necessarily a finite system applied with different degrees of creativity to an infinite variety of situations, and most of the words and phrases we use are "prefabricated" in the sense that we don't coin new ones every time we speak.

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

Jogging, I believe they call it. It seems to be an epidemic psychological illness afflicting Americans these days. A form of masochism, like the flagellantes in the Middle Ages.

That's the attraction of the conference circuit: it's a way of converting work into play, combining professionalism with tourism, and all at someone else's expense. Write a paper and see the world! I'm Jane Austen - fly me!

It's the only thing that keeps me going these days, travelling. Changes of scene, changes of faces