If in the well and truly made martini DeVoto finds "water of life" and the blessing to the spirit, so also DeVoto's The Hour brings to its readers the breath of life and a vision of themselves made generous, indomitable and wise.

I begin to understand that failure is its own reward. It is in the effort to close the distance between the work imagined and the work achieved wherein it is to be found that the ceaseless labor is the freedom of play, that what’s at stake isn’t a reflection in the mirror of fame but the escape from the prison of the self.

The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don't seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it's because we're engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves . . . as suppliants admitted to a shrine.

Never in the history of the world have so many people been so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of those same people felt themselves so poor.

Unlike any other business in the United States, sports must preserve an illusion of perfect innocence.

History is not what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago; it's a story about what happened 200 or 2,000 years ago.

People may expect too much of journalism. Not only do they expect it to be entertaining, they expect it to be true.