We can be reluctant to recognize how much of our culture was literary, particularly now that so many of the institutional purveyors of literature happily have joined in proclaiming its death. A substantial number of Americans who believe they worship God actually worship three major literary characters: the Yahweh of the J Writer (earliest author of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers), the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark, and Allah of the Koran.

In the finest critics one hears the full cry of the human. They tell one why it matters to read.

Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.

I don't believe in myths of decline or myths of progress, even as regards the literary scene.

To read in the service of any ideology is not, in my judgment, to read at all.

In fact, it is Shakespeare who gives us the map of the mind. It is Shakespeare who invents Freudian Psychology. Freud finds ways of translating it into supposedly analytical vocabulary.

Literature is achieved anxiety.