The Partisan Review was a remarkable publication. They were a coterie, and that’s a very good thing. Coteries lead to very good writing, because they all write for each other. And they criticize each other. And they go by each other’s views. And it sharpens their minds. When people write for each other they know what they’re talking about, they understand each other’s language. It liberates them and it sharpens them.

Isaiah Berlin, quoted in “Seeing Mary Plain,” by Frances Kiernan (130)