After love a formal feeling comes.

The greatest works of literature seem to embody both "art" and "morality".

That is the mystery: Reading Henry James can yield prose that is contrary to James, yet inspired by him. Who can understand this?

Among many of my friends and acquaintances, I seem to be one of the very few individuals who felt or feels no ambivalence about my mother. All my feelings for my mother were positive, very strong and abiding.

Love commingled with hate is more powerful than love. Or hate.

Impossible not to imagine the dead observing us. Our love for them a soft, shimmering gossamar that trails behind us.

I always tell my students the same thing. And that's to live life, and to read very voraciously without any definite program. To travel, to meet people, to talk to people, to listen very carefully, and not interrupt, but listen to their own grandparents speak of their families.