“A different voice may be particularly effective in disturbing the existing participants into re-examining matters they had come to take for granted.”

“In trying to justify the humanities, as in trying to live a life, what may turn out to matter most is holding one's nerve.”

“Depth of understanding involves something which is more than merely a matter of deconstructive alertness; it involves a measure of interpretative charity and at least the beginnings of a wide responsiveness.”

“Good work, like good talk or any other form of worthwhile human relationship, depends upon being able to assume an extended shared world.”

“I hadn't had a book in my hands for four months, and the mere idea of a book where I could see words printed one after another, lines, pages, leaves, a book in which I could pursue new, different, fresh thoughts to divert me, could take them into my brain, had something both intoxicating and stupefying about it.”

“The existence of evil can never justify the existence of the State. If there is no evil, the State is unnecessary. If evil exists, the State is far too dangerous to be allowed to exist.”

“A first premonition of the rich variety of life had come to him; for the first time he thought he had understood the nature of human beings - they needed each other even when they appeared hostile, and it was very sweet to be loved by them.”