In The Deep Night Of Metaphysics, All

Cynicism And Naivety Lie Cheek By Jowl In The American Imagination; If The United States Is One Of The Most Venal Nations On Earth, It Is Also One Of The Most Earnestly Idealistic.

I Say That Virtue Is Really All About Enjoying Yourself, Living Fully; But Of Course It Is Far From Obvious What Living Fully Actually Means.

In Conscious Life, We Achieve Some Sense Of Ourselves As Reasonably Unified, Coherent Selves, And Without This Action Would Be Impossible. But All This Is Merely At The 'imaginary' Level Of The Ego, Which Is No More Than The Tip Of The Iceberg Of The Human Subject Known To Psychoanalysis. The Ego Is Function Or Effect Of A Subject Which Is Always Dispersed, Never Identical With Itself, Strung Out Along The Chains Of The Discourses Which Constitute It.

Literary Texts Do Not Exist On Bookshelves: They Are Processes Of Signification Materialized Only In The Practice Of Reading. For Literature To Happen, The Reader Is Quite As Vital As The Author.

Works Of Art Cannot Save Us. They Can Simply Render Us More Sensitive To What Needs To Be Repaired.