Those who are put off by so-called “difficult” reading material are likely put off by other challenges in life. They settle for the facile comforts of easily digested pablum and shun the sublime pleasure of mastering aesthetic complexity.

It’s interesting that people blame books for their own intellectual deficiencies.

An affirmative embrace of inferiority is present in the judgment that a difficult book must be “pretentious.”

Savonarola, Cola di Rienzo, Mussolini, and now Salvini. Once again, in a moment of profound weakness, Italy has chosen fascism.

The bone spurs which kept Donald Trump out of the Vietnam War have prevented him from attending a ceremony in the rain at the Belleau cemetery.