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If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

You always want to read something that everybody says has gone too far, don't you? That's supposed to not just be charting our decline, but embodying it?

I am so sorry to see the state of reading in such decline. I think it says something really scary and terrible about us as a culture. I think it does have to do with everyone's total global embrace of technology.

For years, I had heard about the lack of interest in literature in the U.S. and I had complained about it. I failed to understand how people could fail to be moved by art.

The decline of violence is a fractal phenomenon. You can see it over millennia, over centuries, over decades and over years.

For all the tribulations in our lives, for all the troubles that remain in the world, the decline of violence is an accomplishment that we can savor - and an impetus to cherish the forces of civilization and enlightenment that made it possible.

The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

American decline is real, though the apocalyptic vision reflects the familiar ruling class perception that anything short of total control amounts to total disaster.

Reduced... to a crude formula, the Russian tragedy is precisely the tragedy of a society in which literature turned out to be the prerogative of the minority.