M. H. Abrams

"If you learn one thing from having lived through decades of changing views, it is that all predictions are necessarily false."

"The survival of artistic modes in which we recognize ourselves, identify ourselves and place ourselves will survive as long as humanity survives."

"The theories of the major philosophers of the 18th century secular enlightenment were biblical and theological in spite of themselves."

"When something startlingly new comes up, young people, especially, seize it. You can't complain about that."

"I think most of the things I published have been published out of desperation, not because they were perfected."

"It's amazing how, age after age, in country after country, and in all languages, Shakespeare emerges as incomparable."

"I've always been surprised at the degree of success of The Mirror and the Lamp and the range and duration of esteem for it. … I had no reason to expect in 1953 that it would appeal to more than a spec…"

"Hard work makes easy reading or, at least, easier reading."