If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book.

People need religion. It's a vehicle for a moral tradition. A crucial role. Nothing can take its place.

What rules the world is idea, because ideas define the way reality is perceived.

The trouble with traditional American conservatism is that it lacks a naturally cheerful, optimistic disposition. Not only does it lack one, it regards signs of one as evidence of unsoundness, irresponsibility.

I regard myself to have been a young Trostkyite and I have not a single bitter memory.

Anyone who knows anything about journalism knows that reporters are rarely in a position to investigate anything. They lack the authority to subpoena witnesses, to cross-examine, to scrutinize official records. They are lucky to get their phone calls returned.

After all, if you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you also have to believe that no one was ever improved by a book (or a play or a movie). You have to believe, in other words, that all art is morally trivial and that, consequently, all education is morally irrelevant. No one, not even a university professor, really believes that.