Date: September 27, 2012

"The conservative mind, a repository of fresh ideas just two decades ago, is now little more than a click-click slide projector holding a tray of apocalyptic images of modern life that keeps spinning around, raising the viewer’s fever with every rotation."

— Lilla, Mark (b. 1956)

Date: February 4, 2012

"That sounds like stop-and-go mindfulness--focusing on the lives of other creatures to dispel the usual mind theaters that plague us."

— Ackerman, Diane (b. 1948)

Date: April 15, 2013

"Big data is like the offensive coordinator up in the booth at a football game who, with altitude, can see patterns others miss. But the head coach and players still need to be on the field of subjectivity."

— Brooks, David (b. 1961)

Date: May 20, 2013

"As this book began to veer astray, I felt that Lindemann's mind was like a sleek yacht built for exhilarating grace and speed but commandeered by moldy tyrants for mundane use as a sluggish freighter."

— Paglia, Camille (b. 1947)

Date: June 19, 2013

"Where they (it was held) re-made the world visually and emotionally in the smithies of their tortured souls (to paraphrase James Joyce), Warhol blithely swiped subject matter from mass media."

— Sartwell, Crispin (b. 1958)

Date: July 1, 2013

"Many lines of poetry are so long-embedded in my memory that I find them appearing when I speak or write. Sometimes I am quoting. Sometimes I am unconsciously drawing from the reservoir."

— Ebert, Roger (1942-2013)

Date: July 12, 2013

"The disheartening fact is that for every college professor who made Shakespeare or Lawrence come alive for the lucky few—the British scholar Frank Kermode kindled Shakespeare into an eternal flame in my head—there were countless others who made the reading of literary masterpieces seem like two ...

— Siegel, Lee (b. 1957)

Date: August 3, 2013

"The imagination is a double-edged sword."

— Luhrman, T. M. (b. 1959)

Date: May 30, 2013

"And the key to life is to develop an internal moral, emotional G.P.S. that can tell you which way to go."

— Winfrey, Oprah (b. January 29, 1954)

Date: February 15, 2013

"We become a nation of survivalists, alone in the bunkers of our mind, with nothing but empty static on the radio."

— Pierce, Charles P. (b. 1953)