There is no way in which we can retrospectively erase the Treaty of Vienna or the Great Irish Famine. It is a peculiar feature of human actions that, once performed, they can never be recuperated. What is true of the past will always be true of it.
Terry EagletonPoetry is the most subtle of the literary arts, and students grow more ingenious by the year at avoiding it. If they can nip around Milton, duck under Blake and collapse gratefully into the arms of Jane Austen, a lot of them will.
Terry EagletonMan eternally tries to get back to an organic past that has slipped just beyond his reach.
Terry EagletonYou've got to have a sense of different audiences. I'm a kind of performer manque - I come from a long line of failed actors!
Terry Eagleton