I'm A Bad Jew, A Bad Russian,

I'm Neither Catholic Not Protestant. Protestant Sounds Good But I Don't Think I Am.

In General, In America, Every Discourse In Literature In 15 Minutes Degenerates Into A Conversation About Ethics, Morality And This And That. The Holocaust And The Consequences Of It. Well, I Find It Terribly Boring, Predictable And Unimportant, Because What Matters About Literature Is Esthetic Achievement.

A Language Is A More Ancient And Inevitable Thing Than Any State.

At Certain Periods Of History It Is Only Poetry That Is Capable Of Dealing With Reality By Condensing It Into Something Graspable, Something That Otherwise Wouldn't Be Retained By The Mind.

Were We To Choose Our Leaders On The Basis Of Their Reading Experience And Not Their Political Programs, There Would Be Much Less Grief On Earth. I Believe ... That For Someone Who Has Read A Lot Of Dickens To Shoot His Like In The Name Of An Idea Is Harder Than For Someone Who Has Read No Dickens.