2
" We see it on blogs and in emails, on television talk shows, in public meetings and community forums; we are a culture that seems unable to concentrate, to pursue a line of thought or tolerate a conflicting point of view. … It’s different with a book, or any long-form piece of writing; these are slower, deeper, quieter. As readers, we are asked to slip inside the text, and if we can’t help but bring our personalities and perceptions to the process, the participation required leads to an inevitable empathy. "
― David L. Ulin , The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time
14
" Pierce is referring to the collapse of collective narrative, which is what we are experiencing as a culture: left and right relying on their own news sources, Raw Story and the Daily Caller, MSNBC and Fox News. Not only that, but even the factions are factionalized, and have been since at least the 1960s. Purity, the rabid fervor of the true believer (the same for all extremists, left and right), versus pragmatism, competence. "
― David L. Ulin , The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time
16
" …the idea that belief alone is now enough, in certain quarters, to give something the weight of truth. The effect might not be equivalent, but the implications are: that by not asking questions, by reacting rather than thinking, we allow ourselves to be susceptible to all manner of lies. Here have the fallout from the detonation of the central narrative, the breakdown of a kind of collective dialogue, in which, in the name of some amorphous fantasy of identity or ideology, we succumb to the most reptilian of our fears. "
― David L. Ulin , The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time
