Telephone conversations are so inadequate, so lacking in expression and gesture and everything.

The phone is an instrument of intrusion into order. It is a threat to control. Just when you think you are alone and safe, the call could come that changes your life. Or someone else's. It makes the same flat, mechanical noise for everyone and gives no clues what's waiting there on the other end of the line. You can never be too careful.

You know, a cell phone's like a guy; if you don't plug him in every night, charge him good, you got nothing at all.

Every phone in the place started ringing. We had between 30 to 50 phones calls in the newsroom and an equal number at the front office in a 15-minute period.

It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.

You know what I'd love to read? A Dialogue between Bron and Shevek and Socrates. Socrates would love it too. I bet he wanted people who argued. You can tell he did, you can tell that's what he loved really, at least in The Symposium.