What all great teachers appear to have in common is love of their subject, an obvious satisfaction in rousing this love in their students, and an ability to convince them that what they are being taught is deadly serious

While reading writers of great formulatory power — Henry James, Santayana, Proust — I find I can scarcely get through a page without having to stop to record some lapidary sentence. Reading Henry James, for example, I have muttered to myself, "C’mon, Henry, turn down the brilliance a notch, so I can get some reading done." I may be one of a very small number of people who have developed writer’s cramp while reading.

I am basically a complainer and all the grounds for complaint have been swept out from under me.

I am the heterosexual Truman Capote.

I myself think anti-Semitism is about envy.

High standards generally -- about workmanship and creation of objects, about what is owed in friendship, about the quality of art and much else -- far from being snobbish, are required to maintain decency in life.

Envy is never general, but always very particular - at least envy of the kind one feels strongly.