The most interesting people are never perfect.

America faces an enemy who believes in enforced ignorance. And all that we stand for is the open mind, the generous spirit, the ideal of tolerance, freedom, education, opportunity.

Only those who [do] nothing [make] no mistakes.

Nothing ever invented can you a bigger life than a book.

If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.

One of the regrets of my life is that I did not study Latin. I'm absolutely convinced, the more I understand these eighteenth-century people, that it was that grounding in Greek and Latin that gave them their sense of the classic virtues: the classic ideals of honor, virtue, the good society, and their historic examples of what they could try to live up to.

The great thing about the arts is that you can only learn to do it by doing it.