“The stranglehold of the departed was much resented by the new generation of aspiring authors. Which is why it is who did make the breakthrough were so admired.”

“It is often the parishioners, the men and women in the pews, who set the tone.”

“Because there was no pre-existing patrician elite, those successful in the new book industry could write very swiftly to the top of the social hierarchy.”

“A long list of propositions does not necessarily make a coherent argument”

“Print, it transpired, was not just an instrument of agitation and change: now it was equally necessary to win the peace.”

“Although Martin Luther's theological message was couched as an exhortation to all Christian people, his frame of reference, the human experiences on which he drew and his emotional sympathies, or a...”

“Blood memory is described as our ancestral (genetic) connection to our language, songs, spirituality, and teachings. It is the good feeling that we experience when we are near these things.”

“The more serious about gardening I became, the more dubious lawns seemed. The problem for me was not, as it was for my father, the relation to my neighbors that a lawn implied; it was the lawns rel...”

“We having so much fun together!! 'through nature..through people..through religion...through culture..through friendship...we manage to learn something that lead to a better relationship among huma...”

“With a few exceptions, the media have phrased the past five months as a contest of wills between Bush and Saddam Hussein, not as a moment of deragement between two armed madmen willing to order the...”

“Music itself was color-blind but the media and the radio stations segregate it based on their perceptions of the artists.”

“The mediastenographers to power.”

“People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.”

“All good writing is persuasive writing; persuading the reader to buy what you're selling, to side with you, to believe the tales you tell.”

“Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled wit...”