The only ideals allowed are healthy ones - those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world -- in order to set up a shadow world of ''meanings.''

Books are not only the arbitrary sum of our dreams, and our memory. They also give us the model of self-transcende nce.

One of the author's most ancient roles is to call the community to account for its hypocrisies and bad faith.

Thinking, writing are ultimately questions of stamina.

...what I write is smarter than I am. Because I can rewrite it.

Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always “over there,” with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as the implacable, furtive menace. And “terrorist” is a more flexible word than “communist.” It can unify a larger number of quite different struggles and interests. What this may mean is that the war will be endless---since there will always be some terrorism.