We can’t dismantle or parse or interrogate the literary world any further—it is time to look up from the microscope and adjust our eyes to what’s left.

For a critical piece it is worth remembering that a writer’s contract is always with the reader.

When I arrive in a city for the first time, my conclusions typically arrive on the next plane.

To see someone perfect a craft or demonstrate a prowess for anything that’s difficult prods you to get closer, to see it better, to simply keep watching.

Spend a little time with Dostoevsky if you’re ever feeling a bit glum.

He will forever have grand plans for the world, and the world will forever disappoint him with its failures.

Most contemporary non-fiction books take three hundred pages to tell a one hundred page story.

On Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread

Later is a word for when you’re feeling sluggish and directionless and just a little bit glum, for when you’re avoiding what you must confront.

What the reader feels and thinks and has already experienced is what the novel of validation delivers.

If talking about Hitler is the endpoint and forfeit of all political arguments, then references to Nuremberg are the downfall of all legal arguments.

Hermann Hesse’s 1919 novel Demian.

Dealing with Criticism as Stephen Dedalus.

The most famous white fence in literature requires a new bookshelf.

An unfinished project is a taunt to danger.

Artistic journeys don’t have destinations.

Iris Murdoch grips her pen a tad firmer than most writers.

You can hear her voice—a bit breathless, direct, consumed by the story.

The Interruption of our dinnertime conversations.

Although you may believe that you don’t judge, everyone judges what they encounter.