Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.

I like what I do for a living. I also like NOT doing it--perhaps even more.

Flatter me, but delicately, please, for I am fastidious.

The Lady: a fluty voice, sensible shoes, a melancholy sense of living by rules few still remember.

Original sin reassures us that our slip was not the first.

The more powerless people are, the longer they are kept waiting.

The extravagance of intellect outstrips the extravagance of desire.