Quote of the Day (Philip Roth, on Literature and ‘A Habit of Mind That Has Disappeared’)

“Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing."— American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Philip Roth (1933-2018), quoted in David Remnick, “Into the Clear,” The New Yorker, May 8, 2000