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

It's hard not to be afraid. Be less afraid.

Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens and real diseases are useful material.

Decline of the letter, the rise of the notebook! One doesn't write to others any more; one writes to oneself.

We are ruled by quotations.

The writers or artists I write about are not necessarily those I care most about (Shakespeare is still my favourite writer) but those whose work I feel has been neglected.

Along with people who pretty themselves for the camera, the unattractive and the disaffected have been assigned their beauty.