"... At the end of the day, some authors will endure and most, including some very good ones, will not. Why do I think reading is important? It is such an effective medium between mind and mind. We think largely in words. A medium made only of words doesn't impose the barrier of any other medium. It is naked and unprotected communication. That's how you get pregnant. May you always be so."
"I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect." -- Oscar Wilde
... The man can write. He has lived a life. He has seen for himself, making it a point to travel regularly to dangerous and wretched nations. He has been a man of political passion ... He takes his positions after a great deal of thought and he makes his reasons clear.
... shows himself as a man temperamentally driven to test his own opinions. He reasons instead of proselytizing. He exists as that most daring of writers, a freelance intellectual. He's a good speaker, can be funny, ... is passably good-looking, and is at no pains to be a charmer. He's popular because he's smart. He says nothing merely to be politic, although in some situations he may keep his meaning coiled well within.
"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason." -- Immanuel Kant
