I think that the book in some ways is the most interesting from our own present standpoint, particularly when we want to think about the way the internet is changing us.

We become, after the arrival of the printing press in general, more attentive more attuned to contemplative ways of thinking.

Culture is sustained in our synapses...It's more than what can be reduced to binary code and uploaded onto the Net. To remain vital, culture must be renewed in the minds of the members of every generation. Outsource memory, and culture withers.

Once upon a time there was an island named Blogosphere, and at the very center of that island stood a great castle built of stone, and spreading out from that castle for miles in every direction was a vast settlement of peasants who lived in shacks fashioned of tin and cardboard and straw.

You can take a book to the beach without worrying about sand getting in its works. You can take it to bed without being nervous about it falling to the floor should you nod off. You can spill coffee on it. You can sit on it. You can put it down on a table, open to the page you're reading, and when you pick it up a few days later it will still be exactly as you left it. You never have to be concerned about plugging a book into an outlet or having its battery die.

The practicality of technology may distinguish it from art, but both spring from a similar, distinctly human yearning.

A lot of your mental energy goes to figuring out where does one word end and the next begin.