M. H. Abrams

“If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false.”

“We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity. The appeal of literature is that it is so thoroughly a human thing — by, for and about human beings. If you lose that focus, you obviate the source of the power and permanence of literature.”

“It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.”

“He always violated your expectations. … He was a character.”

“The survival of artistic modes in which we recognize ourselves, identify ourselves and place ourselves will survive as long as humanity survives.”

“I think most of the things I published have been published out of desperation, not because they were perfected.”

“All students are capable of growth. Some of them seem to be very slow to begin with and it’s probably not their fault, nor do I think it’s a matter of genetics. It’s a matter of what has happened in their lives before. They are all capable of growing, but they will not grow unless you interest them, captivate them in some way, and then make them reach out. Then they will finally enjoy reaching out.”

“Life without literature is a life reduced to penury. It expands you in every way. It illuminates what you’re doing. It shows you possibilities you haven’t thought of. It enables you to live the lives of other people than yourself. It broadens you, it makes you more human. It makes life enjoyable.”

“One of the joys of teaching with the anthology is to watch the excitement grow as students, who may think the past dull and irrelevant, find how fresh and new and powerful are the kinds of writings that are hundreds of years old.”

“It’s a pleasure that you don’t outgrow the anthology.”

“When I was a graduate student, the leading spirits at Harvard were interested in the history of ideas.”

“It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable.”

“John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. I like to read Archie Ammons, my great friend. And Harold Bloom, another former student.”

“The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves.”

“Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading.”

“If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.”

“When something startlingly new comes up, young people, especially, seize it. You can't complain about that.”