"The discussion of ideas as opposed to the American narcissistic obsession with what's going on with the self, that's the general thing people are talking about."

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Such discussions help us very little to enjoy what has been well done in art or poetry, to discriminate between what is more and what is less excellent in them, or to use words like beauty, excellence, art, poetry, with a more precise meaning than they would otherwise have.

— Walter Pater