Nineteenth-century grass-roots populism made twentieth-century progressivism possible.

When carrying a concealed weapon for self-defense is understood NOT as a failure of civil society, to be mourned, but as an act of citizenship, to be vaunted, there is little civilian life left.

The study of history requires investigation, imagination, empathy, and respect. Reverence just doesnt enter into it.

History is a long and endlessly interesting argument, where evidence is everything and storytelling is everything else.

Why do beautiful women love ugly men?

Mainly, the more faddish and newer stages of life are really just marketing schemes. Tweenhood. The young old. The quarter-life crisis.

Germ theory, which secularized infectious disease, had a side effect: it sacralized epidemiology.

Stages of life are artifacts. Adolescence is a useful contrivance, midlife is a moving target, senior citizens are an interest group, and tweenhood is just plain made up.

In kindergarten, you can learn how to be a citizen of the world.

Folklore used to be passed by word of mouth, from one generation to the next; thats what makes it folklore, as opposed to, say, history, which is written down and stored in an archive.

Old reference books are like tree rings. Without them, there'd be no way to know what a tree had lived through.

This, she thought, was what love and desperation made you do: say things that were better left unsaid, give yourself away in a million little gestures, a thousand little changes of expression.

Sing your life

When you're silent, your silence condones it. Thus, whatever you believe in goes down the drain.

I like to encourage people interested in gardening or planting to begin with a simple herb garden. Even if you live in a small apartment, you can have some herb pots.

Inspiration demands the active cooperation of the intellect joined with enthusiasm, and it is under such conditions that marvelous conceptions, with all that is excellent and divine, come into being.

A mind is like a puzzle; you must unlock it to read its hidden secrets.

Art Is a Way Out. Do not let life overwhelm you. When the old paths are choked with the débris of failure, look for newer and fresher paths. Art is just such a path. Art is distilled from suffering.

I am sustained by the tranquility of an upright and loyal heart.

I feel Jewish in the sense of culturally Jewish, I suppose the way Bernie Sanders feels Jewish, but not Jewish in a religious sense.

I basically wrote the code and the specs and documentation for how the client and server talked to each other.