"what we require of a theory...as Karl Popper shows, is not necessarily that it be true but that it be falsifiable. To propose a literary theory that is arguably false is a triumph over muddle-headedness...As Bacon said, "Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.""
"If there is a moral to be drawn from this inconclusive tale, it is that theories are as revealing, misleading, reductive, or constructive as the people who create and use them."
"critics justify their explanations by referring to text and using accepted interpretive procedures so that they will not be accused of subjectivity in a profession that prizes scientific, objective methods (we are all charter members of the Society for the Suppression of Subjectivity)."