From 2004:
How many more novels do I have time to read, or plays to see? If I’m lucky, I’m somewhere on the far side of the middle of life, meaning that every book I read brings me that much closer to the dark encounter (or, as Henry James called it, the distinguished thing). This knowledge doesn’t fill me with the desire to read nothing but great literature between now and then–man cannot live by classics alone–but it does make me less willing to devote disproportionate tracts of time to the consumption of individual works of art that violate the iron law of aesthetic economy. Do I really want to read Proust again before I die? The answer is yes, but I have my doubts about Moby-Dick…
Read the whole thing here.