“I liked teaching Henry James. When you look down at a Henry James novel from a helicopter height, you find an intricate spider web that all clings together.”

“I like art history and art criticism. Leo Steinberg has always been my favorite. He's very original, very accurate and acute.”

“I was unnerved to learn in my twenties that the poems of Emily Dickinson that I had memorized as a girl were not the poems as she had written them.”

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me...”

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like there's nobody listening, And live like it's heaven on earth.”

“So many books, so little time.”

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”