Newspaper accounts must not only be studied, but, occasionally refuted.

One paper boasted that its subscription and advertising numbers proved that America did not need the social change it rival paper advocated.

Emily Dickinson sublimely unnames even the blanks.

One mark of originality that can win canonical status for a literary work is strangeness that we either never altogether assimilate, or that becomes such a given that we are blinded to its idiosyncrasies.

The unity of a great era is generally an illusion.

Conventional wisdom is not always the best wisdom.