“Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.”

“Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.”

“If language is lost, humanity is lost. If writing is lost, certain kinds of civilization and society are lost, but many other kinds remain - and there is no reason to think that those alternatives are inferior.”

“Typographic style is founded not on any one technology of typesetting or printing, but on the primitive yet subtle craft of writing.”

“Literature in the written sense represents the triumph of language over writing: the subversion of writing for purposes that have little or nothing to do with social and economic control.”

“In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles.”

“Essay on Adam"There are five possibilities. One: Adam fell.Two: he was pushed. Three: he jumped. Four:he only looked over the edge, and one look silenced him.Five: nothing worth mentioning happened to Adam.The first, that he fell, is too simple. The fourth,fear, we have tried and found useless. The fifth,nothing happened, is dull. The choice is between:he jumped or was pushed. And the difference between theseis only an issue of whether the demonswork from the inside out or from the outsidein: the onetheological question.”