"It’s a pleasure that you don’t outgrow the anthology."

"John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. I like to read Archie Ammons, my great friend.…"

"The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spi…"

"Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading."

"I've always been surprised at the degree of success of The Mirror and the Lamp and the range and duration of esteem f…"

"If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem."

"If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessaril…"

"We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity. The appeal of literature is that it is so thorough…"

"It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable."

"He always violated your expectations. … He was a character."