[He achieved his greatest recognition with his most controversial book,] Love and Death in the American Novel, ... monsters of virtue or bitchery, symbols of the rejection or fear of sexuality.

race to the bottom.

We can have a dialogue on equal basis on all the questions, all the issues -- including human rights,

Of what avail are my loftiest thoughts if I have ceased to exist?” there are some will ask; to whom others, it may be, will answer, “What becomes of myself if all that I love in my heart and my spirit must die, that my life may be saved?” And are not almost all the morals, and heroism, and virtue of man summed up in that single choice?

There is no virtue now in blind reliance / On place or person or the forms of love. / The storm bears down the pivotal tree, the cloud / Turns to the net of an inhuman fowler / And drags us from the air.

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live you life in a manner so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.