谈美

我是一个旧时代的人，流落在这纷坛扰攘的新时代里面，虽然也出过一番力来领略新时代的思想和情趣，仍然不免抱有许多旧时代的信仰。我坚信中国社会闹得如此之糟，不完全是制度的问题，是大半由于人心太坏。我坚信情感比理智重要，要洗刷人心，并非几句道德家言所可了事，一定要从“怡情养性”做起，一定要于饱食暖衣、高官厚禄等等之外，别有较高尚、较纯洁的企求。要求人心净化，先要求人生美化。

小说灯笼

在清朗的晴天，完全无风的和煦春日，樱花也会禁不起自己的重量，宛如溢出般地飘落，呈现出小规模的花吹雪。桌上插在杯子里的大朵玫瑰，深夜也会如碎裂般地散落。这不是风造成的，是自己散落。与天地的叹息一起散落。碰到飞天之神的白绢衣摆而散落。我认为人类至高的荣冠，是美丽的临终。。

围炉夜话

粗粝能甘，必是有为之士。纷华不染，方称杰出之人。

如何读，为什么读

Melville was not a Christian, and tended to identify with the ancient Gnostic heresy, in which the creator God of this world is a bungler and impostor, while the true God, called the Stranger or Alien God, is exiled somewhere in the outer regions of the cosmos.Early, major Faulkner is a kind of unknowing Gnostic; West, Pynchon, and McCarthy in their different ways are very knowing indeed. My subject is how to read their best fiction, and why, and not how to instruct my own readers in ancient heterodoxies (at least not here!), but the first sequence of four novels that I have chosen, in the wake of Melville, achieve their negative splendors in modes parallel to Gnostic visions, as we will see.