In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses.

In large measure, writing is the spatialization of thought.

Some of my fellow academics are very hostile, but I sympathize with them. They've been asleep for 500 years and they don't like anybody who comes along and stirs them up.

Persons grouped around a fire or candle for warmth or light are less able to pursue independent thoughts, or even tasks, than people supplied with electric light. In the same way, the social and educational patterns latent in automation are those of self-employment and artistic autonomy.

the only people who have proof of their sanity are those who have been discharged from mental institutions

When things come at you very fast, naturally you lose touch with yourself.

Faced with information overload, we have no alternative but pattern-recognition.