There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination. - Lionel Trilling

Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.

Rousseau ... is aesthetically revolted by the trashiness of what, some twenty years ago, David Riesman called the 'other-directed' personality, which he saw becoming ever-more salient in our society. This is the personality whose whole being is attuned to catch the signals sent out by the consensus of his fellows and by the institutional agencies of the culture, to the extent that he is scarcely a self at all, but, rather, a reiterated impersonation.

It is now life and not art that requires the willing suspension of disbelief.