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。

一休禅诗

当你笑的时候，你的灵魂和你的身体是合一的，它们一起笑。当你在思考，你的身体和灵魂是分开的。

我们内心的冲突

不只注意那些让他预见失败的因素，还要注意那些让他始终害怕失败的因素

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.