“At his best, Joseph Campbell was merely one of the greatest popu­lar writers on mythology who ever lived.”

“In so many ways and to so many people, Hughes was 'the Negro,' or at least 'Negro literature,' its public face, its spoken voice and cock­tail-party embodiment as well as the source of its printed texts.”

“Hughes was the first black American writer many of us ever read... and his career re­mains an inspiring model for black writers determined to make a living solely from their work.”

“He brought his readers on a trip to a landscape that seemed not only made for them but made by them, a peculiarly visceral American place that practically none of them would ever really see.”

“During the ’50s, when little or nothing honest about gay male and lesbian lives was available culturally, how could a truth teller grab a niche? Not through high culture”

“As glam rock waned and disco had yet to wax, punk style provided the perfect cultural jolt, a new kind of 'No!' that brought together fashion, music, press, and politics to tell the world a story En­gland still can't be too eager to bear”

Portrait of a New York intellectual

“In America, poetic truths have real-life con­sequences, and Mailer is one of the few American intellectuals to perceive this fact as both fundamental and fundamentally good”

“Despite his penetration of the nation­al psyche, and his status as more or less the George Washington of American letters, the respect Cooper has received at home has rarely been more than grudging”

“Most vampire tales I’ve read lately read like little Kinsey reports, full of tasty trivia about vam­pire life, a subject that used to be shrouded in mystery and fear, like sex. Are you ready to open the forbidden curtain?”