The least stupid question a man asks in his lifetime is not: Is there a God and is He a god or a devil? But: Brother, why are you killing me?

Failures to love are irremediable and irredeemable.

Language is one of the thin walls humanity has built up over centuries against its own bestial and destructive impulses.

The critic's hankering to be law-giver rather than servant of literature is irrepressible.

jealousy, the most hideous emotion any human being ever suffers, has nothing to do with the mind. Or not at first.

Inevitably, the flood of literary pornography loosed on us is dulling our reactions of surprise or shock. Its writers are forced to raise the ante, to provide stronger and stronger stimulants. Or try to provide them, since both the manner, the naming of parts and the few inexpressive four-letter words, and the matter, are narrowly limited.

Not literature alone, but society itself is wormed and rotten when language ceases to be respected not merely by advertisers and politicians, but by persons of learning and authority.