“We sometimes hear of the death of literature or of this or that genre, but literature doesn't die, just as it doesn't 'progress' or 'decay.' It expands, it increases. When we feel that it has become stagnant or stale, that… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“Reading is a full contact sport; we crash up against the wave of words with all of our intellectual, imaginative, and emotional resources. What results can sometimes be as much our creation as the novelist's or playwright's.” — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“I can’t go as far as Barthes in killing off the author, but I’m with him on the importance of the reader. We are… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“of his need to assert responsibility for his own life. It may be that Adela does panic in the face of Nothingness, only recovering… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“When it's over, we may feel wooed, adored, appreciated, or abused, but it will have been an affair to remember.” — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“The novels we read allow us to encounter possible persons, versions of ourselves hat we would never see, never permit ourselves to see, never… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“Education is mostly about institutions and getting tickets stamped; learning is what we do for ourselves. When we're lucky, they go together. If I… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“The novels we read allow us to encounter possible persons, visions of ourselves that we would never see, never permit ourselves to become, in… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“we accept fictions as fictions, as things that might be true in their world, if not quite in ours.” — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“We sometimes hear of the death of literature or of this or that genre, but literature doesn't die, just as it doesn't 'progress' or… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“Always" and "never" are not words that have much meaning in literary study. For one thing, as soon as something seems to always be… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“What happens if the writer is good is usually not that the work seems derivative or trivial but just the opposite: the work actually… — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
“characters as rich and complex as those we believe ourselves to be” — Thomas C. Foster Copy Share Image
