“Even a dull life could make worthwhile reading, he said, provided the writer paid sufficient attention to detail.”

“Every successful business (1) creates or provides something of value that (2) other people want or need (3) at a price they're willing to pay, in a way that (4) satisfies the purchaser's needs and expectations and (5) provides the business sufficient revenue to make it worthwhile for the owners to continue operation.”

“Writers show us the glades we'd missed, the trickling voices of streams, the eyes of a barn owl watching us. A writer like my father revealed a shape and movement amid it all, layers, meaning, perspective, joy, because he paid such careful attention, and paying attention is about the biggest redemption there is.”

“The struggle is always worthwhile, if the end be worthwhile and the means honorable; foreknowledge of defeat is not sufficient reason to withdraw from the contest.”

“I have sought to offer humanists a detailed analysis of a technology sufficiently magnificent and spiritual to convince them that the machines by which they are surrounded are cultural artifacts worthy of their attention and respect.”

“He said that the principal function of music was to organize the details into harmonies that were intended to make us forget that there was randomness all around us. The same, he said, could be said for great books.”