Russian Talk Of Political Evil Is As

What I Like About Cities Is That Everything Is King Size, The Beauty And The Ugliness.

As A Form Of Moral Insurance, At Least, Literature Is Much More Dependable Than A System Of Beliefs Or A Philosophical Doctrine. Since There Are No Laws That Can Protect Us From Ourselves, No Criminal Code Is Capable Of Preventing A True Crime Against Literature; Though We Can Condemn The Material Suppression Of Literature - The Persecution Of Writers, Acts Of Censorship, The Burning Of Books - We Are Powerless When It Comes To Its Worst Violation: That Of Not Reading The Books. For That Crime, A Person Pays With His Whole Life; If The Offender Is A Nation, It Pays With Its History.

An Object, After All, Is What Makes Infinity Private.

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.

By Failing To Read Or Listen To Poets, Society Dooms Itself To Inferior Modes Of Articulation, Those Of The Politician, The Salesman, Or The Charlatan. In Other Words, It Forfeits Its Own Evolutionary Potential. For What Distinguishes Us From The Rest Of The Animal Kingdom Is Precisely The Gift Of Speech. Poetry Is Not A Form Of Entertainment And In A Certain Sense Not Even A Form Of Art, But It Is Our Anthropological, Genetic Goal. Our Evolutionary, Linguistic Beacon.