It is one of the great charms of books that they have to end.

I noticed affixed to a laboratory door the following words: "Les théories passent. Le Grenouille reste. [The theories pass. The frog remains.] &mdashJean Rostand, Carnets d'un biologiste." There is a risk that in the less severe discipline of criticism the result may turn out to be different; the theories will remain but the frog may disappear.

It is one of the great charms of books that they have to end.

It is not expected of critics that they should help us to make sense of our lives; they are bound only to attempt the lesser feat of making sense of the ways we try to make sense of our lives.

It is ourselves we encounter whenever we invent fictions.