The German philosopher Walter Benjamin had the curious notion that we could change the past. For most of us, the past is fixed while the future is open. – Terry Eagleton
Postmodernism is among other things a sick joke at the expense of revolutionary avant-gardism. – Terry Eagleton
Irish fiction is full of secrets, guilty pasts, divided identities. It is no wonder that there is such a rich tradition of Gothic writing in a nation so haunted by history. – Terry Eagleton
With fiction, you can talk about plot, character and narrative, whereas a poem brings home the fact that everything that happens in a work of literature happens in terms of language. And this is daunting stuff to deal with. – Terry Eagleton
The perennial conviction that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded with a more comfortable present and a stronger future for their children faces assault from just about every direction. That great enemy of democratic capitalism, economic inequality, is real and growing. – Jon Meacham
Dig a trench through a landfill and you will see layers of phone books like geographical strata or layers of cake…. During a recent landfill dig in Phoenix, I found newspapers dating from 1952 that looked so fresh you might read one over breakfast. – William Rathje, The Economist, 8 September 1990