“The originals are not original, but that Emersonian irony yield to the Emersonian pragmatism that the inventor knows how to borrow.”

“We read, frequently if not unknowingly, in search of a mind more original than our own.”

“We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own.”

“As an addict who will read anything, I obeyed, but I am not saved, and return to tell you neither what to read nor how to read it, only what I have read and think worthy of rereading, which may be the only pragmatic test for the canonical.”

“Socrates, in Plato, formulates ideas of order: the Iliad, like Shakespeare, knows that a violent disorder is a great order.”

“We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. Yet the strongest, most authentic motive for deep reading…is the search for a difficult pleasure.”

“I am naive enough to read incessantly because I cannot, on my own, get to know enough people profoundly enough.”