Ideology... is a kind of contemporary mythology, a realm which has purged itself of ambiguity and alternative possibility.

I liked early Amis a lot, but I stopped reading him some time ago. I admire Hitchens on literary topics - I think he is very astute. McEwan, I read a bit. But I suppose it's more the ideological phenomenon that they represent together that interests me.

The humanities should constitute the core of any university worth the name.

The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is fixed while the future is open.

Being brought up in a culture is a matter of learning appropriate forms of feeling as much as particular ways of thinking.

The past can be used to renew the present, not just to bury it.

Cynicism and naivety lie cheek by jowl in the American imagination; if the United States is one of the most venal nations on Earth, it is also one of the most earnestly idealistic.