“For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.”

“The most effective way of destroying art is the canonization of one given form. And one philosophy.”

“What care I if it be "wild and improbable" and "lacking in literary art"? I refuse to be any longer hampered by such canons of criticism. The one essential thing I demand of a book is that it should interest me. If it does, I forgive it every other fault.”

“Since the purpose of reading, of education, is to become good, our most important task is to choose the right books. Our personal set of stories, our canon, shapes our lives. I believe it is a law of the universe that we will not rise above our canon. Our canon is part of us, deeply, subconsciously. And the characters and teachings in our canon shape our characters--good, evil, mediocre, or great.”

“I'll admit that I was surprised to see two decades of film journalism canonized in the same church as Lincoln, Thoreau, Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson; that's a fairly loose canon.”

“You are absolute angels of the first order. If I were Pope, I’d canonize you.” “The Pope would probably love to turn a cannon on you!”