You come out of the gate, you've got something new, you're subversive, nobody's ever done it before. But by your fifth novel and your fourth literary…

- Daniel Mendelsohn

Repression is good for cultural achievement. Let's face it. What are gay boys going to be like? I always like to say the 19th-century gay boy was Osc…

- Daniel Mendelsohn

We are living in an era of such interesting new forms, and certainly narrative non-fiction has emerged as a major form. People who are great writers …

- Daniel Mendelsohn

Closeness can lead to emotions other than love. It's the ones who have been too intimate with you, lived in too close quarters, seen too much of your…

- Daniel Mendelsohn

What if The Odyssey has no more validity or authenticity than one of the other stories that you hear Odysseus telling? Whoever created The Odyssey wa…

- Daniel Mendelsohn

The three most written-about subjects of all time are Jesus, the Civil War, and the Titanic.

- Daniel Mendelsohn

Shopping as lifestyle is really a sub-cultural problem. When the strictures that set you apart or oppressed you, disappear, is there a way, legitimat…

- Daniel Mendelsohn

I have nothing but great respect for great scholars. But I was in grad school in the '80s and '90s, at the height of the theory craziness. It had a b…

- Daniel Mendelsohn

The writers we absorb when we're young bind us to them, sometimes lightly, sometimes with iron. In time, the bonds fall away, but if you look very cl…

- Daniel Mendelsohn