“consistent affection for his characters is what sets Tolstoy apart. Flaubert is equally objective, he says, but Flauberts objectivity is charged with irritability and Tolstoys with affection. For F...”

“Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.”

“Orwell clung with a kind of wry, grim pride to the old ways of the last class that had ruled the old order. He must sometimes have wondered how it came about that he should be praising sportsmanshi...”

“At the behest of the criterion of authenticity, much that was once thought to make up the very fabric of culture has come to seem of little account, mere fantasy or ritual, or downright falsificati...”

“We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.”

“A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and ...”

“An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought t...”

“Even intellectuals should have learned by now that objective rationality is not the default position of the human mind, much less the bedrock of human affairs.”

“Intellect is not wisdom.”

“Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.”

“As time and space are bent by gravity, so too is truth bent by power.”

“What a curious power words have.”