Art is a form of consciousness.

Volume depends precisely on the writer's having been able to sit in a room every day, year after year, alone.

Passion paralyzes good taste.

The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.

Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours.

A personality is our way of being for others. We hope that others will meet us half way or more, gratify our needs, be our audience, soothe our fears.

Now the new things happening in France don't interest me.