Xinyu Tan’s Reviews > How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading > Status Update

In fact, much of what anyone writes on any subject is autobiographical. There is a great deal of Plato in Republic, of Milton in Paradise Lost, of Goethe in Fast—though we may not be able to put our fingers on it exactly. If we are interested in humanity, we will tend, within reasonable limits, to read any book partly with an eye to discovering the character of its author.

A work of fine art is “fine” not because it is “refined” or “finished,” but because it is an end in itself. It does not move toward some result beyond itself. It is, as Emerson said of beauty, its own excuse for being.
...
To read it well, all you have to do is experience it.

Teachability is often confused with subservience. A person is wrongly thought to be teachable if he is passive and pliable. On the contrary, teachability is an extremely active virtue. No one is really teachable who does not freely exercise his power of independent judgement....The most teachable reader is, therefore, the most critical.