In any period it is upon a very small minority that the discerning appreciation of art and literature depends ... They are still a minority, though a larger one, who are capable of endorsing such first-hand judgement by genuine personal response.

Literature is the supreme means by which you renew your sensuous and emotional life and learn a new awareness.

A good deal of Paradise Lost strikes one as being almost as mechanical as bricklaying.

In any period it is upon a very small minority that the discerning appreciation of art and literature depends ... They are still a minority, though a larger one, who are capable of endorsing such first-hand judgement by genuine personal response.

Poetry can communicate the actual quality of experience with a subtlety and precision unapproachable by any other means.

The few really great-the major novelists ... are significant in terms of the human awareness they promote; awareness of the possibilities of life.