"To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population."

"We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age."

"Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear."

"Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind."

"To read the report of a discussion in which arguments for and against are presented, in which a subject has been covered from different points of view, with new ideas advanced - this is far more instructive than to read a brief account of the resolution passed on the matter."

"I was a little fat pudgy kid with big thick glasses, and I was quiet and never said a word, you know - teachers loved me, straight-A student."

"Write about society as news and treat it like sociology."

"I'm very interested in soldier recovery projects and in Bradley Manning's story, the army intelligence officer who's being held as a detainee and is going to trial for crimes of treason."