I can't think of better ways to learn than through pleasure and curiosity. I guess the reason these two qualities play so small a role in formal education is that they are so subjective and individual. Curiosity and delight can't be institutionalized. Childhood and adolescence form our sensibilities. By the time I arrived in college, I had already developed a deep suspicion of all theories of art that did not originate in pleasure.

Like gladiator games and pyramid building, opera has always been a gloriously money-losing proposition. It is the most extravagant of arts, requiring the const…

The engines that have driven poetry's institutional success - the explosion of academic writing programs, the proliferation of subsidized magazines and presses…

Old empires always appeal to modern poets more than new ones.

When it came to formal classes, I was a slacker. But I've always been a diligent autodidact and can teach myself virtually any subject - if I have a serious in…

I said I liked being half-educated; you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant.

There has been an alarming increase in the number of things I know nothing about.