"Perhaps if movie theaters also played the national anthem before their main attractions, the Internal Revenue Service would allow Hollywood studios to depreciate their actors."

"With today's high salaries, long term contracts, and corporate penetration of the ownership ranks, it is commonplace to hear commentators rue baseball's growing commercialization, claiming it is undermining the aesthetics and competitive spirit of the game. In fact baseball's growing commercialism has been a constant since the 1860s."

"Baseballs exemption from antitrust statutes, based on the notion that it was not involved in interstate commerce, erroneous back in 1922 and more so in the 1950s, became even more anomalous in 1957, when the Supreme Court declared football to be subject to the antitrust statutes and stated that baseball's exemption was "unreasonable, illogical and inconsistent.""

"It is true that I described antisocial, parsimonious, sanctimonious, and wasteful behavior by the owners over the years, but baseball's problem is structural, not individual. Put any individual into a position of power with an opportunity to make tens of millions of dollars in an industry that is on a cultural pedestal and protected from all forms of competition, and the odds are against the second coming of Lee Iacocca or Ralph Nader."

"Kerr's wit extended even to the traumatic events that led to his firing. Following FBI investigations, black-listing, and machinations by Governor Reagan to stack the University of California Board of Regents against him, Kerr was removed from his office as Chancellor. A few months later, at a building-dedication ceremony at UC Santa Barbara, Kerr spoke (as previously scheduled), and in his remarks, he mentioned that he had left office just as he had entered it: "fired with enthusiasm.""

"Kerr, however, also had wit. The perfect university, he observed, provided sex for students, sports for alumni, and parking for faculty."

"The university and segments of industry are becoming more and more alike. As the university becomes tied into the world of work, the professor—at least in the natural and some of the social sciences—takes on the characteristics of an entrepreneur...The two worlds are merging, physically and psychologically...The campus and society are undergoing a somewhat reluctant and cautious merger, already well advanced. M.I.T. is at least as much related to industry and government as Iowa State ever was to agriculture."

"[Students] aren't what we ideally would like to see them. They are not independent and individualistic, but they do fit the needs of our emerging industrial society. ... the employers will love this generation, that they are not going to press very many grievances, there won't be much trouble, they are going to do their jobs, they are going to be easy to handle. There aren't going to be riots. There aren't going to be revolutions. There aren't going to be many strikes."

"Wherever you go in the world, it’s always nice to feel like you’re supposed to be there. Whether in a city or the woods, West or East, we all have someplace to be. You’ll know it when you arrive."

"If you lose the dullards back in the dust, that's where they belong. You don't want them anyway."

"People and places are the twin pillars on which most nonfiction is built. Every human event happens somewhere, and the reader wants to know what that somewhere was like."

"I've never heard anybody smile."

"Be a writer. Write things down."

"Journalism is writing that first appears in any periodic journal."

"My roster of the new literature, in short, would include all the writers who come bearing new information and who present it with vigor, clarity and humanity."

"All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem."

"It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon "launder" became a dirty word."

"The writer who cares about usage must always know the quick from the dead."

"Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written before. Writing is learned by imitation."

"You are writing for yourself."

"Good writers are visible just behind their words."

"A writer will do anything to avoid the act of writing."

"Nobody becomes Tom Wolfe overnight, not even Tom Wolfe."

"Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn't be there."

"Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard. It's one of the hardest things that people do."

"We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon."

"Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author."

"This is a book by a writer who does some teaching, not a book by a teacher who does some writing, and one of the satisfactions of the craft is that there's always something new to learn."

"Writing is thinking on paper, or talking to someone on paper. If you can think clearly, or if you can talk to someone about the things you know and care about, you can write - with confidence and enjoyment."

"You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into entertainment."

"The writers job is like solving a puzzle, and finally arriving at a solution is a tremendous satisfaction."

"Pure nonsense is a joy forever, as Keats didn't quite say. I love to see a writer flying high, just for the hell of it."

"The best way to learn to write is to study the work of the men and women who are doing the kind of writing you want to do."

"Never hesitate to imitate another writer - every person learning a craft or an art needs models. Eventually you'll find your own voice and will shed the skin of the writer you imitated."

"Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good."

"Good writing is lean and confident."

"Memoir is the art of inventing the truth."

"If you write for yourself, you'll reach all the people you want to write for."

"Probably the finest travel book ever written by an American is Walden, though Thoreau only went a mile out of town."

"Learning to play the guitar is a combination of mental and motor skill acquisition. And to develop motor skills, repetition is essential ... Whenever musicians have trouble executing a passage, they generally tend to blame themselves for not having enough talent. Actually, all that's wrong is they don't know where their fingers are supposed to go ... You should learn the piece in your head before you play it. And when you do play it, play it so slow that therre's no possibility of making a mistake."

"Our lives are made up of thousands of everyday choices. Over the years these little choices will be bundled together and show clearly what we value."

"There’s an old saying that “no matter how tall your grandpa is, you’ve got to do your own growing,” and that’s the pattern in the Church. We can teach this truth to someone, and they will say, “Well, that’s too fanciful,” and we then say to them: “Do what Joseph Smith did. Go find out for yourself.”"

"No matter what our transgressions have been, no matter how much our actions may have hurt others, that guilt can all be wiped out. To me, perhaps the most beautiful phrase in all scripture is when the Lord said, “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.”"

"Unwinding a habit that you have allowed to entangle you can be difficult. But the power is in you. Do not despair."

"Happiness is inseparably connected with decent, clean behavior."

"No one of us can survive in the world of today, much less what it will become, without personal inspiration."

"Fear is the opposite of faith."

"Community cannot feed for long on itself; it can only flourish where always the boundaries are giving way to the coming of others from beyond them — unknown and undiscovered brothers."

"The movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts of men and women often calls them to act against the spirit of their times or causes them to anticipate a spirit which is yet in the making. In a moment of dedication they are given wisdom and courage to dare a deed that challenges and to kindle a hope that inspires."

"Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, and death to communion with his Father. He affirmed life; and hatred was the great denial."