Just as the attacks themselves had little to do with America, so did America play little role in the defeat of al-Qa'ida's ideology.
January 9th, 2012
A reminiscence of his mentor, writing instructor, and friend.
January 7th, 2012
On literary sociality and the romance between William Faulkner and Joan Williams.
January 6th, 2012
He missed the first class. In fact, he missed the first three.
January 6th, 2012
I was inchoate and jelly-like in graduate school (kind of like a slime mold), but Cavell was kind to me anyway.
January 5th, 2012
While a student of his I often felt the tectonic plates of my own opinions and tightly-held ideas loosen or shift.
January 5th, 2012
On the ghost of Graham Greene.
January 4th, 2012
"One may be pardoned, yes I know / One may, for love undying."
January 3rd, 2012
We cannot know what we are doing. We can only know when we are doing it wrong.
December 31st, 2011
I would not tear papers apart — say they're no good and say they don't work — unless I believed that all of you are capable of writing good fiction.
December 30th, 2011
I sometimes say that Jeremy Prynne taught me everything I know about poetry: which is why I know nothing about poetry.
December 28th, 2011
What Gold modeled for me was the idea that the writer delivers stories that the reader needs. The point is to do that job well.
December 28th, 2011
Tintin est Mort!
December 27th, 2011
"There are some howlers among the pros as delectable as the successes and just as fine a tool of learning."
December 26th, 2011
"The Ghost of Books: Past, Present, and Future" is an experiment not in terror and not necessarily Dickensian.
December 23rd, 2011
"There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education." — Will Rogers... More
"There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them.... More
"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." — Frank Zappa... More
"I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead." — Samuel Goldwyn... More
"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television." —Woody Allen... More
