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

Not a moment passes these days without fresh rushes of academic lemmings off the cliffs they proclaim the political responsibilities of the critic, but eventually all this moralizing will subside.

There is no method except yourself.

Reading well makes children more interesting both to themselves and others, a process in which they will develop a sense of being separate and distinct selves.

It is hard to go on living without some hope of encountering the extraordinary.

Shakespeare will not make us better, and he will not make us worse, but he may teach us how to overhear ourselves when we talk to ourselves... he may teach us how to accept change in ourselves as in others, and perhaps even the final form of change.

Socrates, in Plato, formulates ideas of order: the Iliad, like Shakespeare, knows that a violent disorder is a great order.