We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.

Ideology is not the product of thought; it is the habit or the ritual of showing respect for certain formulas to which, for various reasons having to do with emotional safety, we have very strong ties of whose meaning and consequences in actuality we have no clear understanding.

We are all ill; but even a universal sickness implies an idea of health.

The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.

In the American Metaphysical, reality is always material reality, hard, resistant, unformed, impenetrable, and unpleasant.

Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.

The diminution of the reality of class, however socially desirable in many respects, seems to have the practical effect of diminishing our ability to see people in their difference and specialness.