“If we are not prepared to think for ourselves, and to make the effort to learn how to do this well, we will always be in danger of becoming slaves to the ideas and values of others due to our own ignorance.”

“We, ignorant of ourselves,Beg often our own harms, which the wise powersDeny us for our good; so find we profitBy losing of our prayers.”

“We never love anyone. Not really. We only love our idea of another person. It is some conception of our own that we love. We love ourselves, in fact.”

“We live today amid ritualized anithumanisms. Among those intelligent enough to feel despair, some seek salvation in the literary artist. Artists love flattery; and the scam doesn't work without mystifying the process.The weather is unpredictable, but it is not mysterious.Wall Street is unpredictable, but it is not mysterious. Writing is unpredictable, (like street and sky, there are too many variables.) Its mystery vanishes, like a shadow, the moment the light aimed at your characters turns back upon yourself.”

“As we learn about each other, so we learn about ourselves”

“Before we have children, we think most of the parents sitting in sacrament meeting ought to “do something about their kids.” Once we have kids, we think everyone ought to be a lot more understanding about what we’re trying to survive during the meeting. And once our kids are grown, we think, “I never let my kids get away with that.” We really all need to chill out.”

“But aesthetic value does not rise from the work's apparent ability to predict a future: we do not admire Cézanne because of the Cubists drew on him. Value rises from deep in the work itself - from its vitality, its intrinsic qualities, its address to the senses, intellect, and imagination; from the uses it makes of the concrete body of tradition. In art there is no progress, only fluctuations of intensity. Not even the greatest doctor in Bologna in the 17th century knew as much a bout the human body as today's third-year medical student. But nobody alive today can draw as well as Rembrandt or Goya.”