The work of art itself is . . . a vibrant, magical, and exemplary object which returns us to the world in some way more open and enriched.

I'm extremely interested in the Russian formalists and have been for many years. I'm more drawn to their writing, which is expressive and literary, than to writing which is extremely academic or jargon-ridden.

... liberal intellectualstend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of power; hoping thatthose in positions of authority may prove to be enlightened men, wielding power justly, they are natural, if cautious, allies of the "establishment.

Where once it was the physician who waged bellum contra morbum, the war against disease, now it's the whole society.

Writing is finally a series of permissions you give yourself to be expressive in certain ways. To leap. To fly. To fail.

It is not the position, but the disposition.

Transparence is the highest, most liberating value in art - and in criticism - today. Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are.