Critics Have Been Amusing Themselves For A

To Grow Old Is To Have Taken Away, One By One, All Gifts Of Life, The Food And Wine, The Music And The Company. ... The Gods Unloose, One By One, The Mortal Fingers That Cling To The Edge Of The Table.

Inevitably, The Flood Of Literary Pornography Loosed On Us Is Dulling Our Reactions Of Surprise Or Shock. Its Writers Are Forced To Raise The Ante, To Provide Stronger And Stronger Stimulants. Or Try To Provide Them, Since Both The Manner, The Naming Of Parts And The Few Inexpressive Four-letter Words, And The Matter, Are Narrowly Limited.

The Gesture With Which One Generation Guards The Next Is The Movement, And The Only Time We See It Clearly, Of Life Itself.

Writers Sometimes Talk As Though They Were The Only Friends Of Civilization. This Is Their Conceit. But They Have Special Powers To Serve -- Or To Corrupt -- Civilization, And Are Obliged To Use Them.

A Minor Symptom Of Wars Is The Cancerous Growth Of Committees.