'What I suggest, to myself as to you, is that Specimen Days must be read. There is a quieter Whitman there, wilier in his truths, and an even more circumstantial America somehow waiting for us.'

'It will illustrate one phase of humanity anyhow; how few of life’s days and hours (and they not by relative value or proportion, but by chance) are ever noted. Probably another point too, how we give long preparations for some object, planning and delving and fashioning, and then, when the actual hour for doing arrives, find ourselves still quite unprepared, and tumble the thing together, letting hurry and crudeness tell the story better than fine work.'

'The product in Emerson of weaving together various journal entries across time is a lecture or text which never has the sharpest force of argument but instead retains sometimes a sententious and at other times a discursive and elaborating character. An Emerson essay, though centered on a theme, is so many variations on that theme. Its appeal is not systematic but insightful. An unusual and perhaps essential quality of an Emersonian text is its capacity to reveal itself differently to different readers. Having assigned Emerson to students for more than a quarter century, I can attest to the curious fact that students infrequently agree in identifying the essential passages in any essay, even in the same paragraph of an essay. The student's reading seems an act fundamentally of recognition: the student finds in paragraph and essay, even in the choice of the most important essays, ideas and insights which he acknowledges to be precise and true. It is not always easy to credit the passages other students underscore or even always to catch the relevance. For my own part, I have found it necessary every few years-to put aside my text of Emerson and buy a new, clean text so as to encourage a fresh reading of him. Habit, or well-grooved character, appears to preclude seeing the breadth of observation and illustration before one's eyes in the text—as in life.'

'Emerson-Exemplar: Friedrich Nietzsche's Emerson Marginalia: Introduction'

'You never stop at anywhere. There's no place to stop at.'

I read now in English, in French, less so in German, much less so and with more difficulty in Russian (and I've started learning Spanish). All along my foreign-language reading has never been very exact, but I've found it an enjoyable part of the language-learning process to make do with more vagueness about what's going on in what I read. As I've gotten better the sense of clarity has stabilized and provided a good index to my progress. Perhaps perversely, even when I know I would get more from reading something in translation, I would prefer to read it in the original language.

Yet from time to time I read a passage and suddenly think, I need to know what this says—meaning, I need to see this in translation. I know just why, too: it's accompanied by the formation of an intention to write about the passage. This intention brings with it the apprehension about getting it just right, and apparently with the recognition that I don't think I can do that in the original language.

It's a commonplace that you're the one in charge when you read, which is maybe why it doesn't matter whether you get it just right. Reading is a contested activity in education because no one likes to give up that little bit of sovereignty.

'Troisième élément, cette construction n'est pas seulement un jeu. Certes, en toute société, le jeu est un théâtre où se représente la formalité des pratiques, mais il a pour condition de possibilité le fait d'être détaché des pratiques sociales effectives. Au contraire, le jeu scripturaire, production d'un système, espace de formalisation, a pour « sens » de renvoyer à la réalité dont il a été distingué en vue de la changer. Il vise une efficacité sociale. Il joue sur son extériorité. Le laboratoire de l'écriture a fonction « stratégique » : soit qu'une information reçue de la tradition ou de l'extérieur s'y trouve collectée, classée, imbriquée dans un système et par là transformée, soit que les règles et les modèles élaborés dans ce lieu excepté permettent d'agir sur l'environnement et de le transformer. L'île de la page est un lieu de transit où s'opère une inversion industrielle : ce qui y entre est un « reçu », ce qui en sort est un « produit ». Les choses qui y entrent sont les indices d'une « passivité » du sujet par rapport à une tradition; celles qui en sortent, les marques de son pouvoir de fabriquer des objects. Aussi bien l'entreprise scripturaire transforme ou conserve au-dedans ce quelle reçoit de son dehors et crée à l'intérieur les instruments d'une appropriation de l'espace extérieur. Elle stocke ce qu'elle trie et elle se donne les moyens d'une expansions. Combinant le pouvoir d'accumuler le passé et celui de conformer à ses modèles l'altérité de l'univers, elle est capitaliste et conquérante. Le laboratoire scientifique et l'industrie (qui est justement définie par Marx comme le « livre » de la « science ») obéissent au même schéma. La ville moderne aussi : c'est un espace circonscrit où se réalisent la volonté de collecter-stocker une population extérieure et celle de conformer la campagne à des modèles urbains.'

'Flucht, Flucht in uns selbst'

'Planted rows went turning past like giant spokes one by one as they ranged the roads. The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through them was lost in the dark fields but gathered shining along the pale road, so that sometimes all you could see was the road, and the horizon it ran to. Sometimes she was overwhelmed by the green life passing in such high turbulence, too much to see, all clamoring to have its way. Leaves sawtooth, spade-shaped, long and thin, blunt-fingered, downy and veined, oiled and dusty with the day—flowers in bells and clusters, purple and white or yellow as butter, star-shaped ferns in the wet and dark places, millions of green veilings before the bridal secrets in the moss and under the deadfalls, went on by the wheels creaking and struck by rocks in the ruts, sparks visible only in what shadow it might pass over, a busy development of small trailside shapes tumbling in what had to be deliberately arranged precision, herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of and which the silent women up in the foothills, counterparts whom they most often never got even to meet, knew the magic uses for. They lived for different futures, but they were each other’s unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace.'