Two Quotations I Like

1. "In the traditional Confucian interpretation of poetry, such imagery of the distant beauty personified as the moon can be read as the exile's longing for the imperial court. Naturally, other more erotic and metaphysical interpretations are also possible."

---Footnote on "Red Cliff Rhapsodies, 1 and 2," by Su Shih, in The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. Victor Mair

2. "The laughter of Voltaire, the hatred of Swift were assertions of vitality and the instinct to live in us, which continually struggles not only against evil but against the daily environment."

---V. S. Pritchett, "1984," in Twentieth Century Interpretations of 1984, ed. Samuel Hynes