A reader who quarrels with postulates, who dislikes Hamlet because he does not believe that there are ghosts or that people speak in pentameters, clearly has no business in literature. He cannot distinguish fiction from fact, and belongs in the same category as the people who send checks to radio stations for the relief of suffering heroines in soap operas.

Every human society possesses a mythology which is inherited, transmitted and diversified by literature.

We must reject that most dismal and fatuous notion that education is a preparation for life.

A person who knows nothing about literature may be an ignoramus, but many people don't mind being that.

The tremendous efficiency and economy of the book has once again demonstrated itself. It's the world's most patient medium.

The Bible should be taught so early and so thoroughly that it sinks straight to the bottom of the mind where everything that comes along can settle on it.

Characters tend to be either for or against the quest. If they assist it, they are idealized as simply gallant or pure; if they obstruct it, they are characterized as simply villainous or cowardly. Hence every typical character...tends to have his moral opposite confronting him, like black and white pieces in a chess game.