Technology always has unforeseen consequences, and it is not always clear, at the beginning, who or what will win, and who or what will lose.

It is a mistake to suppose that any technological innovation has a one-sided effect. Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this-and-that.

For the message of television as metaphor is not only that all the world is a stage but that the stage is located in Las Vegas, Nevada.

A book is an attempt to make through permanent and to contribute to the great conversation conducted by authors of the past. […] The telegraph is suited only to the flashing of messages, each to be quickly replaced by a more up-to-date message. Facts push other facts into and then out of consciousness at speeds that neither permit nor require evaluation. (70)

Printing links the present with forever. It carries personal identity into realms unknown.

People in distress will sometimes prefer a problem that is familiar to a solution that is not.

Television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing.