"He’s like a violinist who pauses from bowing expertly through Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 to smash his instrument against the wall." David Orr on Frederick Seidel • The New York Times

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"In French, one doesn’t just clear one’s throat, one has a cat in the throat... So what if I were to decide to talk with a cat in the throat?" Caroline Bergvall on bilingualism • Jacket

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"To begin with, I reasoned, buses are cheaper than trains, and it is a well-known fact that when Herbert first went abroad, he traveled on a shoestring." Ewa Hrniewicz-Yarbrough on Zbigniew Herbert • Threepenny Review

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"Despite all the barriers, this poetry does communicate, even urgently, to modern Western readers." Adam Kirsch on classical Chinese poetry • The New Republic

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"They also serve who only sit and type." David Gates on Janet Frame • The New York Times

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"Why should we contribute to the disrepute of language as the next best thing to dismissing it altogether?" John Banville on Beckett's letters • The New Republic

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"The idea of ‘nothing at all’ fascinated her all her life." Colm Toíbín on the letters of Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell • London Review of Books

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