“Occasions are rare when the best literature becomes, as it were, the folk literature, and generally speaking literature has always been carried on within small limits and under great difficulties.Lionel Trilling
“The poet is in command of his fantasy, while it is exactly the mark of the neurotic that he is possessed by his fantasy.Lionel Trilling
“There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination.Lionel Trilling
“The poet... may be used as a barometer, but let us not forget that he is also part of the weather.Lionel Trilling
“We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.Lionel Trilling
“Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.Lionel Trilling