I myself always want to talk about "poetry," not "the poem."

Authors we are in danger of accepting as gospel, whereas founders of discursivity provide permeable ideas that we can elaborate upon in a tradition of constructive dialogue.

I'm a fan or naysayer like everyone else, not an authority of any kind.

Satire about any and all professionals with a special vocabulary has been a staple of fiction and popular ridicule since the 18th century.

The rhetoric of theory is always in a bind. It pronounces ideas and denounces failures to accept or grasp them while insisting that there are no grounds either for accepting or grasping ideas.

Criticism is concerned with evaluation. There may be evaluative principles implicit in this or that form of theory, but theory in and of itself is not prescriptive.

I beg my reader to consider the "evidence" I provide for my case and perhaps feel persuaded as a result. Beyond that I make no claim.

Every original poet has a new insight, or rather introduces a new power.

I'm not only a romanticist but a romantic myself. I take it for granted the originality matters.

The basic change in the landscape since my salad days started with the defensive rediscovery of history and politics by all the theoretically-oriented academics in the late seventies and eighties.

There's no more important mission, because it's folly to think that we can doom wildlife to oblivion and believe humans will be just fine. That's a world I hope to never lay eyes upon.

Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.

And, we have no such thing as a budget anymore. Our manager freaks when we show him the bill. We're lavish to the bone, but all our money goes back into the product.

The motto for every missionary, whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster, ought to be 'Devoted for Life.'

In the light we can see what is and what is not. We know what is right and what is inappropriate.

BBC had tried to develop the book, set in England, as a two-hour movie. I went to a meeting and they said, "Look at this," and I thought the book was outstanding. I was like, "Can I do this?"

It is besides necessary that whoever is brave should be a man of great soul.

The Seeker himself becomes the knower. The thing to be known is already there. There is nothing to be known afresh. More-over there are no two things. There is only the seer, the knower.

What could not be denied was that in vast segments of the animal world natural selection of the most qualified individuals took place not by competition for females but by competition for space.

In the sea there are countless treasures, But if you desire safety, it is on the shore.