“No one will seek the highest [things] if he believes that there is no truth, that nothing is his fault, and that government will guarantee his wants.”

“I often think . . . that the bookstores that will save civilization are not online, nor on campuses, nor named Borders, Barnes & Noble, Dalton, or Crown. They are the used bookstores, in which, for a couple of hundred dollars, one can still find, with some diligence, the essential books of our culture, from the Bible and Shakespeare to Plato, Augustine, and Pascal.”

“Why read? Because we are given more than we are.”

“Thinking is itself, however, an adventure.”

“There's not one good thought in that place. There's nothing but waste and want. I can feel his selfish cravings and an abyss of secrets I hope to never know.”

“Al, close your eyes.” He swallows. His eyes look excited and terrified at the same time.He closes his own and leans towards me, his hands on the blanket, supporting the weight of his upper body. I lean in too until I can feel his breath on my lips. My hands are now joined in my lap. My eyes are still open. I want the memory of this moment burned in my mind forever.”

“It’s notyour fault that your brain is reduced to the size of one neuron andthat it itself is being annihilated by the loneliness.”