M. H. Abrams Quotes

Critic July 23, 1912 - April 21, 2015

John Updike is always fun. And one of my former students, Tom Pynchon. And Harold Bloom, another former student.

Always Bloom Fun Student Former Harold Tom Another John Students

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

History Graduation Ideas Student Graduate Graduate Student Harvard Spirits The History Of Interested Leading Were

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

Enlightenment Secular Spite Century Bible Philosophers Theological Theories 18th Century Major Themselves Were

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

Hard Work Work Hard Reading Easy Reading Easier Easy Least Makes

Key metaphors help determine what and how we perceive and how we think about our perceptions.

Think Help Key About Determine Metaphors Perceive Perceptions How Our

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

You Poetry Body Through Missed Poem Get Means Quickly Read

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

You Through False Learn Decades Predictions Views Changing Having Lived Necessarily One Thing Thing

We are human, and nothing is more interesting to us than humanity.

Humanity Nothing More Human Interesting Than Us

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

Age Amazing Country How Emerges Incomparable Languages Shakespeare After

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

Long Humanity Will Survival Artistic Identify Modes Survives Ourselves Place Recognize Survive Which

We believed that to understand literature, you had to understand its place in history and culture.

History You Culture Place Believed Had Literature Understand

The Romantics were whipping boys of the New Criticism, but they appealed to me anyway. I was recalcitrant. It was clear to me that they had thought innovatively.

Me New Criticism Thought Appealed Romantics Whipping Anyway Boy Clear Had Were

Jews had an outsider's eye on a lot of Western tradition.

Tradition Eye Outsider Had Jews Lot Western

I was never a monist - always a diversitarian.

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