Jane Austen is at the end of the line that begins with Samuel Richardson, which takes wonder and magic out of the novel, treats not the past but the present.

I admire Ginsberg as a poet, despite the fact that he seems not to know when he is being good and when he is bad. But he will last, or at least those poems will last.

I think the pattern of my essays is, A funny thing happened to me on my way through Finnegans Wake.

Cooper wrote a novel which is absolutely indistinguishable from Austen, completely from a female point of view, completely English, no sense that he was an American.

DeLillo never seems committed to me to what he is writing. Very nice surfaces, but he's got nothing underneath.

I liked Camille Paglia. I liked her even better when I heard her talk.

I gave up writing blurbs because you make one friend and 200 enemies.