The trivial is at least usually real.
Feb 252015
Feb 242015
The struggle to assimilate a new idea without disturbing the old ones is hideously physical, like becoming a werewolf.
Feb 232015
For every empire history offers a hundred explanations for why it fell, when what we need to know is how it lasted.
Feb 202015
When you list four sources in a footnote, you have forty; when you list three, you have three.
Feb 192015
Nothing sucks the joy out of an avocation like trying to make a living at it.
Feb 182015
There is nothing that everyone should read but a lot that no one should.
Feb 172015
No cynic would argue for cynicism.
Feb 162015
A thing got rid of is a joy forever.
Feb 132015
You understand another language not when you can translate it, but when you no longer have to.
Feb 122015
The reader properly resents coincidence. Life does not arrange itself to suit him; why should it arrange itself to suit the author?