“I now accept that Keats’s words are not ‘immortal’—no one will read sonnets (nor read anything) when the last Homo sapiens is gone. No sentient being will recall what language even was, when…

“Whichever head you listen to, the bark may be slightly different but the bite is the same: vote Republican in 2016 and you’re voting for the whole Tea Party megillah. It’s a nativist,…

“In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, the Republican Party has been hijacked by a demagogue. Along with everyone else in the twittering class, I’ve waited several months too long to make…

“I have known, for decades, that American discourse was degenerating into babble; that the American academy was becoming, more and more, a dumbed-down, profit-based, high-school-equivalency engine; that American society was devolving into race-,…

“Donald Trump is an ugly, ugly man. He has a face which expresses, to perfection, his inner monster. He wears a bloated body which, like Jabba the Hutt’s (down to the near-naked trophy…

“So . . . Once upon a time, O Best Belovéd, these were the books that made me a reader and writer; the books that made me me, to a very large extent;…

“The 19-year-old, in her white dress, plights her troth, in a moment of blind hope and splendid passion, and will not want whispered in her ear that the man at her side will…

“Where we live, in north-central Florida, patience is not a virtue but an absolute necessity. The community here, especially at such emporia as Hallmark, is largely in its late 70s and 80s, and…

“I have asked, I have begged, all of you to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s book so that at least we will be on the same page. We are on the same planet and if…

“When I attempt to describe the culture in which I live to residents of countries where excellence is still pursued, citizens still engage with one another in rational, multifaceted discourse, literacy is increasing,…