A famously wise old man in a village was once asked how he came by his wisdom. "I got it from my good judgment," he answered. And where did his good judgment come from? "I got it from my bad judgment."

"Terrorism" is what we call the violence of the weak, and we condemn it; "war" is what we call the violence of the strong, and we glorify it.

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

Filth is always a sign of weakness - in the mouth of the user and in the mind of the writer.

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, his is also one who is permanently disappointed in the future.

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers.

Norbert Blei is a writer the way people used to be troubadours and minstrels, celebrating what he has seen and heart and felt in a deceptively simple style reminiscent of the early Sherwood Anderson. . . . Like Anderson, he is a lover, and his affection invests his writing with a singular charm.