Books Are Solitudes In Which We Meet.

We Know Less When We Erroneously Think We Know Than When We Recognize That We Don't.

I've Been Gratified To See Over The Twenty Or So Years Of My Writing Life The West Become Less Of A Colony Of The East; Maybe New Technologies And Too Much Travel Undermine The Idea Of Provinciality.

Globally, As The Nation-state Becomes Increasingly Less Meaningful - A Provider Of Positive Goods And More And More Just An Army And Some Domestic Enforcement - People Are Withdrawing To Shape And Support More Localised Forms Of Organisation And Power. To The Extent That It's Part Of That Civilised And Localising World, The Same Is True Of The U.s.

The Poor Have Often Been Subversive Just Because They Don't Always Believe Their Own Depiction As Brutes And Loafers And Leeches, And New Economy Is Making Lots More Poor Or Recognize Their Fellowship With The Insecurity Of The Poor, The Portion Of The Population For Whom The System Does Not Work.

Hope Is Not A Lottery Ticket You Can Sit On The Sofa And Clutch, Feeling Lucky. It Is An Axe You Break Down Doors With In An Emergency. Hope Should Shove You Out The Door, Because It Will Take Everything You Have To Steer The Future Away From Endless War, From The Annihilation Of The Earth's Treasures And The Grinding Down Of The Poor And Marginal. To Hope Is To Give Yourself To The Future - And That Commitment To The Future Is What Makes The Present Inhabitable.