“The cage is empty; the mind has flown.”

“It is true that biographical readings of the plays are dangerous, unregulated, prone to sentimentalization. It is absurd to cherry-pick passages of poetry written over more than two decades and infer from them a consistent personal attitude. Lines belong in a dramatic context and in the psychological context of the character who utters them and cannot be taken to reflect Shakespeare's views.”

“Everything should be doubted and tested before it is held to be true.”

“When in doubt, move, even if it's in the wrong direction.”

“This is the way history happens: it is measured out in days rather than epochs.”

“they pulled Ezra through the streets in a wooden cage. Blake was sure of God. Villon was a mugger. Lorca sucked cock. T. S. Eliot worked a teller's cage”

“In the hovering between sleep and wakefulness, lucid but dreaming, Luce's mind got away from her, and all kinds of empty shit she had meant to put entirely behind her forever swam up and lived in her head again.”