Real Reading Is A Lonely Activity.

Reading Well Makes Children More Interesting Both To Themselves And Others, A Process In Which They Will Develop A Sense Of Being Separate And Distinct Selves.

One Measures Oncoming Old Age By Its Deepening Of Proust, And Its Deepening By Proust. How To Read A Novel? Lovingly, If It Shows Itself Capable Of Accomodating One's Love; And Jealously, Because It Can Become The Image Of One's Limitations In Time And Space, And Yet Can Give The Proustian Blessing Of More Life.

The World Does Not Get To Be A Better Or A Worse Place; It Just Gets More Senescent.

Read Deeply, Not To Believe, Not To Accept, Not To Contradict, But To Learn To Share In That One Nature That Writes And Reads.

We Can Be Reluctant To Recognize How Much Of Our Culture Was Literary, Particularly Now That So Many Of The Institutional Purveyors Of Literature Happily Have Joined In Proclaiming Its Death. A Substantial Number Of Americans Who Believe They Worship God Actually Worship Three Major Literary Characters: The Yahweh Of The J Writer (earliest Author Of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers), The Jesus Of The Gospel Of Mark, And Allah Of The Koran.