A good deal of Paradise Lost strikes one as being almost as mechanical as bricklaying..

The few really great-the major novelists ... are significant in terms of the human awareness they promote; awareness of the possibilities of life..

In any period it is upon a very small minority that the discerning appreciation of art and literature depends ... They are still a minority, though a….

Poetry can communicate the actual quality of experience with a subtlety and precision unapproachable by any other means..

It is well to start by distinguishing the few really great - the major novelists who count in the same way as the major poets, in the sense that they….

Literature is the supreme means by which you renew your sensuous and emotional life and learn a new awareness..

The "great tradition" does not brook even the possibility of libidinal gratification between the pages as an end in itself, and FR Leavis's "eat up y….

The only way to escape misrepresentation is never to commit oneself to any critical judgement that makes an impact - that is, never to say anything. ….