Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

But real life is only one kind of life—there is also the life of the imagination.

Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.

Television should be our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's and our Camelot.

Do you understand how there could be any writing in a spider's web?" "Oh, no," said Dr. Dorian. "I don't understand it. But for that matter I don't understand how a spider learned to spin a web in the first place. When the words appeared, everyone said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle." "What's miraculous about a spider's web?" said Mrs. Arable. "I don't see why you say a web is a miracle-it's just a web." "Ever try to spin one?" asked Dr. Dorian.

A good many of the special words of business seem designed more to express the user's dreams than to express a precise meaning.

Although there is no substitute for merit in writing, clarity comes closest to being one.