Three qualities distinguish phony erudition: it’s all recent, it’s all humanities, and it’s all in one language.
Jul 022015
Reading
The dead alive and busy.
—Vaughan
May 202015
Many classics are now read only because so many others have already read them.
Apr 162015
A book that ossifies at exactly the same rate as its readers becomes a beloved contemporary classic.
Apr 132015
Books can also change lives for the worse.
Mar 272015
Reading, unless it’s for writing, is high-class idling.
Feb 182015
There is nothing that everyone should read but a lot that no one should.
Feb 122015
The reader properly resents coincidence. Life does not arrange itself to suit him; why should it arrange itself to suit the author?
Jan 122015
What we call realism in fiction is only a bit of reality-tinsel to decorate the old myths.
Dec 022014
Readers fall in love with villains because authors do.
Dec 012014
Scholarship
Magisterial: Pompous
Brilliant: Unreliable
Valuable: Trivial
Eccentric: Deranged
Classic: Dull
Formidable: Duller
Encyclopedic: Stupefying