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.

We believe what we want to believe, what we like to believe, what suits our prejudices and fuels our passions.

Being yourself is not remaining what you were, or being satisfied with what you are. It is the point of departure and far from the goal.

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.

It may be true that the weak will always be driven to the wall; but it is the task of a just society to see that the wall is climbable.

Genealogy: A perverse preoccupation of those who seek to demonstrate that their forebears were better people than they are.

The greatest educational dogma is also its greatest fallacy: the belief that what must be learned can necessarily be taught.