Sure I have a cell-phone, so I don't have to remember everyone's number anymore, but that really wasn't a core part of my brain.

I always feel a certain sense of reverence in libraries, even small city ones that smell like homeless internet users.

The thing you like/are good at is a sacred thing.

Arthur Jay Klinghoffer, a professor of political science at Rutgers University, has argued that geography seems less relevant than ever in a world where nonstate actors -- malleable entities like ethnicities, for example -- are as powerful and important as the ones with governments and borders. Where on a map can you point to al-Qaeda? Or Google, or Wal-Mart? Everywhere and nowhere.

We don't realize how hard it was to drive anywhere outside the major cities less than a century ago.

I always bring my kids vacation souvenirs printed in Comic Sans, so they know I love them but not unconditionally.

For me, it started as a child with one of those little wooden jigsaw maps of the U.S., wheres theres crocodiles on Florida and apples on Washington state. That was my very first map.