“But it's also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes.”

“To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken because the greatesthazard of life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, live, and love.”

“The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannotlearn, feel, change, grow or love.Chained by his certitude, he is a slave; he has forfeited his freedom.Only the person who risks is truly free.”

“But what has changed? The truth is that nothing changes...It is we who have changed, we who are beguiled by technological change, we who have ceased to believe that a certain situation exists while beginning to believe a new one has replaced it. We still love and hate, suffer and feel joy, resent and admire, covet and sacrifice. We still allow some with power to exploit and marginalize others without power, and we still look on quietly, feeling bad about it all but doing nothing. Nothing at all changes when new technologies are introduced into a culture. Nothing changes but our attitudes about what is and is not “real,” what is and is not “important,” what is and is not worth knowing. And we change because we choose to change, because media, as McLuhan tells us, are nothing more than extensions of us.”

“We must have the daring to be nothing but ourselves if we are to know what true power is.”

“Perhaps we are both doing what we think right. But what we think right is so damned different that there can be nothing between us in the way of concession. There is nothing possible between us but honor and death.”