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.

Everyone wants a prodigy to fail; it makes our mediocrity more bearable.

The most beautiful prose paragraph yet written by any American.

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

I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike

It is hard to go on living without some hope of encountering the extraordinary.

Shakespeare is the true multicultural author. He exists in all languages. He is put on the stage everywhere. Everyone feels that they are represented by him on the stage.

At our present bad moment, we need above all to recover our sense of literary individuality and of poetic autonomy.

Read deeply, not to believe, not to accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and reads.

Reading well is one of the greatest pleasures that solitude can afford you.

The art and passion of reading well and deeply is waning, but [Jane] Austen still inspires people to become fanatical readers.

What if followers of Christ stopped looking for work in places where the MOST number of Christians Christians lived and started looking for work places where the LEAST Christians lived?

Life is a gift. Treat each moment with anticipation and gratitude.

Simplicity of appearance can cause hindrance to success when you are poor. But the same simplicity is admired in a rich and successful person.

When I'm not writing, I can't make sense of out anything. I feel the need to make some sense and find some order, and writing fiction is the only way I've found that seems to begin to do that.

I have no question that when you have a team, the possibility exists that it will generate magic, producing something extraordinary But don't count on it.

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae, bugbears to frighten children.

The idea of starting a band because of Nirvana and thereby trying to sound like Nirvana is totally not the case.

Folk music has pretty powerful medicine for changing your heart.

I can't imagine a more profoundly exciting experience than I had working on 'Avatar.' And whether I'm ever part of it again, I'll always be very proud that I was a part of it.

My personal interest in ordinary people is unlimited, but I am fascinated by the challenge of portraying true greatness adequately with my camera.