Epstein Interviewed

Here's a 1999 Atlantic interview with essayist Joseph Epstein. An excerpt:

There are two kinds of writers. (Robert Benchley once said there are two kinds of people: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't.) One is a writer who's always telling you things you never thought of, or didn't know before. The other is a writer who's telling you things that you do know but that you've never quite formulated for yourself. I'm the latter kind of writer. People are often saying to me, "You know, I've always felt that, but I never really thought to put it that way." It's pleasing when that happens. Simply to give pleasure at a fairly high intellectual level makes my day.