To my daughter and to my sons

"...a woman's reading pleasure in any patriarchal society must be a product of false consciousness—that is, of one's having been successfully indoctrinated in ideas hostile to one's true interests."

(Nina Baym, "The Feminist Teacher of Literature," in Gender in the Classroom, ed. Susan L. Gabriel and Isaiah Smithson (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 64.)

"Nobody who was not open to dialogue with others, willing to listen, argue honestly and admit when he or she was wrong could make real headway in investigating the world."

(Terry Eagleton, After Theory (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 133.)