Clearance items

History is what cannot be fooled.

Where the writer is obscure, he is still in the process of getting things done; where he is clear, he is finished.

A good writer rarely takes his own advice.

You can look at anything closely enough. The question is whether it repays your attention. (Attention must be a loan, then.)

By describing a writer’s style, you ought to be able to describe the personality he puts forth—the kind of person his writing makes him out to be.

For there to be a violation, there must be a duty.

The style conducts the argument that the plot controls.

You can’t sneak around anywhere without starting a dog barking.

News may be true and still not be the truth.

The minute an authority becomes the authorities, it is time to turn tail and run.

A man in a baseball cap cannot be taken seriously.

Conservative-bashing is the gay-bashing of the American intelligentsia.

Literature is not a claim that the world is textual; it is an effort to organize the world in terms of a text.

Certain elements of American society, when they disapprove of something, endeavor to get it banned. What is needed is more intelligent persons who ask with honest puzzlement why anyone would think to waste his time with such a thing.