Evil is often supposed to be without rhyme or reason.

Literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech.

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.

What's wrong with a bit of nostalgia between friends? I think nostalgia sometimes gets too much of a bad press.

Because subjects like literature and art history have no obvious material pay-off, they tend to attract those who look askance at capitalist notions of utility. The idea of doing something purely for the delight of it has always rattled the grey-bearded guardians of the state. Sheer pointlessness has always been a deeply subversive affair.

It is easy to see why a diversity of cultures should confront power with a problem. If culture is about plurality, power is about unity. How can it sell itself simultaneously to a whole range of life forms without being fatally diluted?

Most poetry in the modern age has retreated to the private sphere, turning its back on the political realm.