What a man really says when he says that someone else can be persuaded by force, is that he himself is incapable of more rational means of communication.

The main trouble with despair is that it is self-fulfilling. People who fear the worst tend to invite it. Heads that are down can't scan the horizon for new openings. Bursts of energy do not spring from a spirit of defeat. Ultimately, helplessness leads to hopelessness.

The one thing I have learned about editing over the years is that you have to edit and publish out of your own tastes, enthusiasms, and concerns, and not out of notions or guesswork about what other people might like to read.

We have learned to live in a world of mistakes and defective products as if they were necessary to life. It is time to adopt a new philosophy in America.

A book is like a piece of rope; it takes on meaning only in connection with the things it holds together.

Drugs are not always necessary. Belief in recovery always is.

The eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.