It is only a short step from exaggerating what we can find in the world to exaggerating our power to remake the world. Expecting more novelty than there is, more greatness than there is, and more strangeness than there is, we imagine ourselves masters of a plastic universe. But a world we can shape to our will is a shapeless world.

No agnostic ever burned anyone at the stake or tortured a pagan, a heretic, or an unbeliever.

The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.

Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives- from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango - with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to-date scripts for actors on the tourists' stage.

The force of the advertising word and image dwarfs the power of other literature in the 20th century.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.

Each living art object, taken out of its native habitat so we can conveniently gaze at it, is like an animal in a zoo. Something about it has died in the removal.