Knowledge is awareness, and to it are many paths, not all of them paved with logic. But sometimes one is guided through the maze by intuition. One is led by something felt on the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wasteland to the spirit.

We do not at present educate people to think but, rather, to have opinions, and that is something altogether different.

I never figured it was a cowardly thing to be scared. It's to be scared and still face up to what scares you that matters.

The only power source a book needs is you. If you have to leave for a few minutes you have not lost the story. It is waiting for you when you return. You can pick up a book and resume reading at any time, after a few minutes, a few days, even a few years. A television picture or a movie might be lost forever, but your book is waiting.

Today you can buy the Dialogues of Plato for less than you would spend on a fifth of whiskey, or Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for the price of a cheap shirt. You can buy a fair beginning of an education in any bookstore with a good stock of paperback books for less than you would spend on a week's supply of gasoline.

My future is one I must make myself.

Books are precious things, but more than that, they are the strong backbone of civilization. They are the thread upon which it all hangs, and they can save us when all else is lost.