We Can Make The Trains Run On

Our Priests And Presidents, Our Surgeons And Lawyers, Our Educators And Newscasters Need Worry Less About Satisfying The Demands Of Their Discipline Than The Demands Of Good Showmanship.

The Way In Which The Photograph Records Experience Is Also Different From The Way Of Language. Language Makes Sense Only When It Is Presented As A Sequence Of Propositions. Meaning Is Distorted When A Word Or Sentence Is, As We Say, Taken Out Of Context; When A Reader Or Listener Is Deprived Of What Was Said Before, And After. But There Is No Such Thing As A Photograph Taken Out Of Context, For A Photograph Does Not Require One. In Fact, The Point Of Photography Is To Isolate Images From Context, So As To Make Them Visible In A Different Way.

The Effects Of Technology Are Always Unpredictable. But They Are Not Always Inevitable.

Watching Television Requires No Skills And Develops No Skills. That Is Why There Is No Such Thing As Remedial Television-watching.

A Book Is An Attempt To Make Through Permanent And To Contribute To The Great Conversation Conducted By Authors Of The Past. […] The Telegraph Is Suited Only To The Flashing Of Messages, Each To Be Quickly Replaced By A More Up-to-date Message. Facts Push Other Facts Into And Then Out Of Consciousness At Speeds That Neither Permit Nor Require Evaluation. (70)