“When L.A.s schizophrenia between Dreamland and Utopia was becoming socially manifest, the United States, which was always a place, went to war with America, which was always an idea.”

“When he placed a candle on the shelf across the room from him and lit its wick, he came to realize that in fact everything he saw was a flat surface, like a screen that in fact dimension was an il...”

“Can anything be less cool than defending the motion picture academy?”

“Redford always has been a cool presence both before and behind the camera. His best movie as a filmmaker, 1994's 'Quiz Show,' exhibits a classicism verging on self-repression, and the social indign...”

“Nothing manifests more persuasively the American contradiction than that the author of the Declaration of Independence, a slave owner, wrote an antislavery clause into the document - as if to compe...”

“Before movies, memory unspooled differently in the mind, trailing off in dust-blasted fade-out rather than spliced-together flashback; before photography, memory rippled like a reflection on water'...”

“Sibyl, what do you want?I want to live, the Sibyl said, and her voice rang rich and full. I want to keep on living forever and watching heroes and fools and knights go up and down, into the world a...”

“When God is driven to the periphery of the public square, the human spiritual capacity longs for exercise, and it often finds it in the suspension of disbelief and activity of the imagination that ...”

“When is a monster not a monster? Oh, when you love it.”

“We were talking of DRAGONS, Tolkien and I In a Berkshire bar. The big workman Who had sat silent and sucked his pipe All the evening, from his empty mug With gleaming eye glanced towards us: "I see...”

“A myth... is a metaphor for a mystery beyond human comprehension. It is a comparison that helps us understand, by analogy, some aspect of our mysterious selves. A myth, in this way of thinking, is ...”

“All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is the principal event in chronology.”

“Im not a woman you bring home to Mother, pick out china patterns with, or Mary forefend, breed. Ive seen a chunk of the universe, true, but theres still so much more to see. I doubt Ill ever cure t...”

“My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,My gentle guide, in following thee.”

“Amory took to writing poetry on spring afternoons, in the gardens of the big estates near Princeton, while swans made effective atmosphere in the artificial pools, and slow clouds sailed harmonious...”