Literature is achieved anxiety.

Everything in life is arbitrary yet must be over-determined in literature. Jean McGarry knows how to tell a persuasive tale illuminating these truths.

Personality, in our sense, is a Shakespearean invention.

Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. He exists in all languages. He is put on the stage everywhere. Everyone feels that they are represented by him on the stage.

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.

The idea of Herman Melville in a writing class is always distressing to me.

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.