The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

... every human being is an unprecedented miracle.

A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright.

There is something terribly radical about believing that one's own experience and images are important enough to speak about, much less to write about and to perform

It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.

There are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.