The reader must come armed , in a serious state of intellectual readiness. This is not easy because he comes to the text alone. In reading, one's responses are isolated, one'sintellect thrown back on its own resourses. To be confronted by the cold abstractions of printed sentences is to look upon language bare, without the assistance of either beauty or community. Thus, reading is by its nature a serious business. It is also, of course, an essentially rational activity.

Watching television requires no skills and develops no skills. That is why there is no such thing as remedial television-watching.

I mean to suggest that without a transcendent and honorable purpose, schooling must reach its finish, and the sooner we are done with it, the better.

We can make the trains run on time but if they are not going where we want them to go, why bother?

As a culture moves from orality to writing to printing to televising, its ideas of truth move with it.

The idea of taking what people call the 'entertainment culture' as a focus of study, including historical perspective, is not a bad idea.

[M]ost of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action. (68).