There has been for many years resentment of Spain as the conqueror, but a lot of things about modern Spain have changed, he said. We should talk abou… - Ilan Stavans

The moment I entered a subway car in New York City, I realized that there wasn't one English language but a multiplicity of them, or that the English language was devouring all sorts of sounds that were coming from different regions in the world, and that some of those sounds could be mine. I could be devoured by the English language, or I could adapt myself, figure out what this language is and try to push it in, rearrange it from within. I think that is the journey that many immigrants feel. We come to the language. The language welcomes us. But we also realize at some point that if we abandon our own immigrant language and we just surrender, fully immerse ourselves in English, we will give up an essential part of who we are. And so it's a negotiation, a give and take. Either way, I feel enormously grateful to this beautiful, magnificent polyphonic language for its openness, its embrace, its capacity to recognize that the homogeneity is boring and that there are all sorts of ways of embracing it.

I tell my students that education isn’t about facts. It isn’t about theories, either. It is about tracking your thoughts, about witnessing how stories are formed in your mind. It is about allowing the mind not to be clogged, about letting it see not what it does but how it does it. The rules of criticism are the same as the rules of other types of literature. These rules boil down to one: finding the right words to tell the right narrative at the right time. Nothing else matters.

The best conditions for fine criticism to emerge are rather simple: an atmosphere where ideas and stories aren’t in opposition but in partnership, where the act and art of thinking becomes a compelling narrative not about a particular point but about life itself.