We have much wisdom to gain by learning to understand other people's cultures and permitting ourselves to accept that there is more than one version of reality.

One of the good things about the profession of being a professor, is that you also have time to do what interests you and what you care about or what you're good at.

Public circulation is what renders something a quotation. It's quotable because it's been quoted, and its having been quoted gives it authority.

I don't really usually push an agenda, and I don't feel that my main job is to persuade people of something. My main job is to help them think about something.

Literature is being taught as though it were only political medicine or political poison-a view that is not only illiberal but illiterate.

I suppose everybody does get attached to characters whether in movies or in stories, but I think that's part of the reason you get involved with literature is because there's somebody that grabs you about it and then you want to figure out why.

It's very hard to know who your readers are, but that's who I'm... if I have somebody in my head, that's probably who it is.