... the place we assign to pornography depends on the goals we set for our own consciousness, our own experience.

One man thinks before he acts. Another man thinks after he acts. Each is of the opinon that the other thinks too much.

In the greatest art, one is always aware of things that cannot be said. . .of the contradiction between expression and the presence of the inexpressible. Stylistic devices are also techniques of avoidance. The most potent elements of a work of art are, often, its silences.

Illnesses have always been used as metaphors to enliven charges that a society was corrupt or unjust.

The moral pleasure in art, as well as the moral service that art performs, consists in the intelligent gratification of consciousness.

If I thought that what I'm doing when I write is expressing myself, I'd junk the typewriter. Writing is a much more complicated activity that that.

An important job of the critic is to savage what is mediocre or meretricious.