What seems distinctively modern as a unit of thought, of art, of discourse is the fragment; and the quotation is one kind of fragment.

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

Nobody ever discovered ugliness through photographs. But many, through photographs, have discovered beauty.

Modern discussions of the possibility of tragedy are not exercises in literary analysis; they are exercises in cultural diagnostics, more or less disguised.

I'm more cautious about what I write.

A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world. That means trying to understand, take in, connect with, what wickedness human beings are capable of; and not be corrupted - made cynical, superficial - by this understanding.

You know that you can't make references to the Classics any longer and less and less to the English classics even.