Lionel TrillingThinkers

Culture is that mysterious, creative power which seems to transcend any particular act or habit or quality that may be observed. Culture makes a life coherent and allows one to confront the terrors of the outer and the inner world, to establish the ritual and art, the pieties and duties which make possible the life of the group and the individual.

Literature is tasked with making us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive.

The Mind is exactly a poetry-making faculty in the greater part of its tendency.

The Poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.

Snobbery is pride in status without pride in function.

Youth is a time when we find the books we give up but do not get over.