To recognize that some of the things our culture believes are not true imposes on us the duty of finding out which are true and which are not.

Education is the movement from darkness to light.

Reason cannot establish values, and its belief that it can is the stupidest and most pernicious illusion.

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers, not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.

The artist is the most interesting of all phenomena, for he represents creativity, the definition of man.

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency - the belief that the here and now is all there is.

Law may prescribe that the male nipples be made equal to the female ones, but they still will not give milk.

Once the law is broken with impunity, each man regains the right to any means he deems proper or necessary in order to defend himself against the new tyrant, the one who can break the law.

There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.

As soon as tradition has come to be recognized as tradition, it is dead.

Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music.

I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.

See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little.

Many Christians never let the Bible get in the way of their believing, but depend on their logic, tradition, or experience to formulate beliefs.

Listen, 'real' women are the reason the fashion industry exists.

After all, things are what they are. A message is a message, plates are plates, men are men, and life is life.

There's a lot that's not explained about the universe. And psychic-ness is not stranger than that.

I wasn't always someone who was talented. It was more that I was loud and loved a challenge.

Seattle is this curious liberal island.

I'm lucky because I have so many clashing cultural, racial things going on: black, Jewish, Irish, Portuguese, Cherokee. I can float and be part of any community I want.

If their forces are substantial, prepare for them; if their forces are strong, avoid them.