The exercise of reason is not available only to specialists; it is accessible to everyone.

Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.

A couple of years ago I picked up New Yorker writer Alma Guillermoprieto's "The Heart That Bleeds," which is reportage from Latin America in the 1990s. You can predict that some books will give you a thrill, but you can't predict the books that will hit you hard. It is a little bit like falling in love.

The exercise of reason is not available only to specialists; it is accessible to everyone.

Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig

I was in Venice teaching, so I reread Henry James's "The Wings of the Dove." I love James.

The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion.