Literature Is Achieved Anxiety.

I Won't Say He [shakespeare] 'invented' Us, Because Journalists Perpetually Misunderstand Me On That. I'll Put It More Simply: He Contains Us. Our Ways Of Thinking And Feeling-about Ourselves, Those We Love, Those We Hate, Those We Realize Are Hopelessly 'other' To Us-are More Shaped By Shakespeare Than They Are By The Experience Of Our Own Lives.

In Fact, It Is Shakespeare Who Gives Us The Map Of The Mind. It Is Shakespeare Who Invents Freudian Psychology. Freud Finds Ways Of Translating It Into Supposedly Analytical Vocabulary.

All That A Critic, As Critic, Can Give Poets Is The Deadly Encouragement That Never Ceases To Remind Them Of How Heavy Their Inheritance Is.

Reading Well Makes Children More Interesting Both To Themselves And Others, A Process In Which They Will Develop A Sense Of Being Separate And Distinct Selves.

One Measures Oncoming Old Age By Its Deepening Of Proust, And Its Deepening By Proust. How To Read A Novel? Lovingly, If It Shows Itself Capable Of Accomodating One's Love; And Jealously, Because It Can Become The Image Of One's Limitations In Time And Space, And Yet Can Give The Proustian Blessing Of More Life.