Canonical writing is born of an originality fused with tradition. – From the book jacket

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

Samuel Johnson said Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, "tuned the English tongue.

One reads for oneself and for strangers.

Originality must compound with inheritance.

The aesthetic and the agonistic are one, according to the ancient Greeks.

The inventor knows HOW to borrow.

Persuasion is a strong but subdued outrider.

King die hard, in Shakespeare and in life.

Shakespeare's exquisite imagining belies our total inability to live in the present moment.

Reviewing bad books is bad for the character – WH Auden

Don't allow the fear of falling stop you from pursuing your dream. Prepare. Practice. Pray. Jump! It's through the fall that you'll realize you can to fly.

There are some people to whom muddled thinking and self-deception are the two most unforgivable crimes in the world.

Don't be afraid to go to your library and read every book as long as any document does not offend your own ideas of decency.

Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

There is an extraordinary collaborative spirit when you are learning and growing.

The Mediterranean diet is rich in fruits and vegetables while low in sodium. It is also enriched with olive oil, high in antioxidants as well as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

An individual piece only has meaning when it is seen as part of the whole.

It's nice for us to have a fresh face in the camp to bounce things off.

I think I couldn't do what I do [live without money] without studying economics, because you need to understand the system first - how it currently works - in order to change it.

It took me many years to understand that my identity is more Israeli than Jewish.