Angels in the house always die in the books they preside over because early ascension into heaven is their reward—and because their goodness makes th… - Maureen Corrigan

As I reread these Catholic autobiographies and novels, their odd pridefulness became clearer to me. Much of the Catholic juvenilia I so dearly remembered preached a cover story of self-denial along with a covert sermon about the spiritual and worldly superiority that would result from this self-denial. Writhe and shine.

In our daily lives, where we’re bombarded by the fake and the trivial, reading serves as a way to stop, shut out the noise of the world, and try to grab hold of something real, no matter how small.

Now, given the consumer-pleasing politics of today’s universities, I have, in effect, seventy new bosses each semester; they’re sitting at the desks in front of me. If a teacher is not entertaining or lenient enough and her teaching evaluations plummet, she could lose the job.