Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.

At the bottom of at least popular Marxism there has always been a kind of disgust with humanity as it is and a perfect faith in humanity as it is to be.

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.

I find righteous denunciations of the present state of the language no less dismaying than the present state of the language.

There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination.

The poet may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather.

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.