“Books are where we go alone to complicate ourselves. Inside this solitude, we take on contours, textures, perspectives. Heightened language levitates the reader. Great art transfigures. And when we go back to it, it's full of even more surprises. We… — John Leonard Copy Share Image
Isn't it amazing the way the future succeeds in creating an appropriate past? — John Leonard Copy Share Image
“For Pol Pot, as for every other kamikaze of Kingdom Come, "the goal was not to destroy but to transmute." We have heard this… — John Leonard Copy Share Image
In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this and the shame… — John Leonard Copy Share Image
“Isn't post-modernism really one big cover-up for the failure of the French to write a truly interesting novel ever since a sports car ate… — John Leonard Copy Share Image
“I was going to suggest some hard-won guidelines for responsible reviewing. For instance: First, as in Hippocrates, do no harm. Second, never stoop to… — John Leonard Copy Share Image
“Books are where we go alone to complicate ourselves. Inside this solitude, we take on contours, textures, perspectives. Heightened language levitates the reader. Great… — John Leonard Copy Share Image
Aspiring to a souffle, he achieves a pancake at which the reader saws without much appetite. — John Leonard Copy Share Image
“It seems to me that my whole life I've been standing on some tower or a pillbox or a trampoline, waving the names of… — John Leonard Copy Share Image
The rich are different from you and me because they have more credit. — John Leonard Copy Share Image
