“Melville's example demonstrates the wisdom of waiting to read the classics. Coming to a great book on your own after having accumulated essential life experience can make all the difference.”

“We interact with one another as individuals responding to a complex haze of factors: professional responsibilities, personal likes and dislikes, ambition, jealousy, self-interest, and, in at least some instances, genuine altruism. Living in the here and now, we are awash with sensations of the present, memories of the past, and expectations and fears for the future. Our actions are not determined by any one cause; they are the fulfillment of who we are at that particular moment. After that moment passes, we continue to evolve, to change, and our memories of that moment inevitably change with us as we live with the consequences of our past actions, consequences we were unaware of at the time.”

“There are two possible responses to a world suddenly gripped by terror and contention. There is the Moseley way: get mad and get even. But as the course of King Philip's War proved, unbridled arrogance and fear only feed the flames of violence. Then there is the (Benjamin) Church way. Instead of killing him, try to bring him around to your way of thinking. First and foremost, treat him like a human being. For Church, success in war was about coercion rather than slaughter, and in this he anticipated the welcoming, transformative beast that eventually became, once the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were in place, the United States.”

“Matter of fact, I watch tons of tube, but I also read tons of books so I can figure out what's true and what's fake, which isn't always easy. Books are like truth serum--if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”

“Books are like truth serum. If you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”

“Books are like truth serum-- if you don't read, you can't figure out what's real.”

“READING, beaming up into books" -Kevin 'Freak' from Freak's Dictionary --"Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick pg 167”