John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. And Harold Bloom, another former student.

Infinite Jest’ is just awful. It seems ridiculous to have to say it.

When I was a graduate student, the leading spirits at Harvard were interested in the history of ideas.

I was never a monist - always a diversitarian.

The first test any poem must pass is no longer, 'Is it true to nature?' but a criterion looking in a different direction: namely, 'Is it sincere? Is it genuine?'

Jews had an outsider's eye on a lot of Western tradition.