In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.

Books are the carriers of civilization... Books are humanity in print.

To rush in upon an event before its significance has had time to separate from the surrounding circumstances may be enterprising, but is it useful? ... The recent prevalence of these hot histories on publishers' lists raises the question: Should - or perhaps can - history be written while it is still smoking?

Confronted by menace, or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, define it.

To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

Government remains the paramount area of folly because it is there that men seek power over others - only to lose it over themselves.

The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive.