Right now, we happen to be in a general period of regression, not just in education. A lot of what's happening is sort of backlash to the 60s; the 60s were a democratizing period.

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think.

The general population doesn't know what's happening, and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.

That's the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.

Jingoism, racism, fear, religious fundamentalism: these are the ways of appealing to people if you're trying to organize a mass base of support for policies that are really intended to crush them.

There's a good reason why nobody studies history, it just teaches you too much.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

Nobody should have any illusions. The United States has essentially a one-party system and the ruling party is the business party.

If you want to control a population... give them a God to worship.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.

A novel is no different than graffiti in a bathroom stall, it's just more pretentious.

Between the world we seeand the things we fear, there are doors. When they are opened, nightmares become reality.

The hardest thing to open is a closed mind.

I feel very proud of the work from the '80s because it is very bright and colorful.

Accept certain inalienable truths.

Real music to me is real; it's what you feel.

You may see me, fat and shining, with well-cared for hide, . . . a hog from Epicurus' herd. [Lat., Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises, . . . Epicuri de grege porcum.]

The child is a realist in every domain of thought, and it is therefore natural that in the moral sphere he should lay more stress on the external, tangible element than on the hidden motive.

Make someone happy, Make just one someone happy, And you will be happy, too.

He pulls me over the railing and against his chest, gathering me into his arms, easing an arm under my knees. I press my face into his shoulder, and there is a sudden, hollow silence.