One Whitman is miracle enough, and when he comes again it will be the end of the world. - Randall Jarrell

An intelligent man said that the world felt Napoleon as a weight, and that when he died it would give a great oof of relief. This is just as true of Byron, or of such Byrons of their days as Kipling and Hemingway: after a generation or two the world is tired of being their pedestal, shakes them of with an oof, and then — hoisting onto its back a new world-figure — feels the penetrating satisfaction of having made a mistake all its own.

I have trouble knowing what to do at parties. Prisoners tame mice, or make rings out of spoons: I analyze people’s handwriting...or else ask you to tell me what you read when you were a child. (People speak unusually well of the books of their childhood, don’t they? Or is this one more life-giving illusion?) I love to see a hard eye grow soft over Little Women... And, I’ve found, there’s no children’s book so bad that I mind your having liked it: about the tastes of dead children there is no disputing.

Most people don’t listen to classical music at all, but to rock-and-roll or hillbilly songs or some album named Music To Listen To Music By...