Good fiction reveals feeling, refines events, locates importance and, though its methods are as mysterious as they are varied, intensifies the experience of living our own lives.

It is guaranteed to put all teeth on edge, including George Washington's, wherever they might be.

The solemnity of the annual Nobel ceremonies in Stockholm with the cheerful bad taste of the grand opening of a shopping center in Los Angeles.

There's no doubt about it. Arcadia is Tom Stoppard's richest, most ravishing comedy to date, a play of wit, intellect, language, brio and, new for him, emotion. It's like a dream of levitation: you're instantaneously aloft, soaring, banking, doing loop-the-loops and then, when you think you're about to plummet to earth, swooping to a gentle touchdown of not easily described sweetness and sorrow.

[His acting] remains forever fixed in a time that never dates.

Hack fiction exploits curiosity without really satisfying it or making connections between it and anything else in the world.

Nothing in Death Hunt makes a great deal of sense, though the scenery is rugged and the snowscapes beautiful.