It's not the sentiments of men which make history but their actions.

The final purpose of art is to intensify, even, if necessary, to exacerbate, the moral consciousness of people.

A high church for the true mediocre.

I don't want to retire. I'm not that good at crossword puzzles

Part of the oncoming demise (of New York during its terrible fiscal crisis) is that none of us can simply believe it. We were always the best and the strongest of cities, and our people were vital to the teeth. Knock them down eight times and they would get up with that look in the eye which suggests the fight has barely begun.

Armstrong, sitting in the commander's seat, spacesuit on, helmet on, plugged into electrical and environmental umbilical's, is a man who is not only a machine himself in the links of these networks, but is also a man sitting in (what Collins is later to call) a 'mini-cathedral.' a man somewhat more than a pilot, somewhat more than a superpilot, is in fact a veritable high priest of the forces of society and scientific history concentrated in that mini cathedral, a general of the church of the forces of technology.

With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists the small trumpet of your defiance.