“I Shall Not Serve”
The Christmas Dinner passage from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man — an “unfortunate priest-ridden race.”
Literary Excerpts
“One must have the courage of one’s vocation”— Picasso
Strong Opinions — Nabokov’s Best Bits
The sharpest observations from the master of English prose — on art, literature, and the responsibilities of the writer.
Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays
The best Hazlitt excerpts on the Bard — literary criticism at its finest, from Hamlet to Lear.
Victor Serge’s Finest Lines and Passages
The most luminous prose from the revolutionary writer — passages of courage, exile, and the human spirit.
Prescience
Oscar Wilde on the decline of Fez — a review from 1886 that reads as though written yesterday.