“McLuhanism and the media have broken the back of the book business; they've freed people from the shame of not reading. They've rationalized becoming stupid and watching television.” PeopleBookReadingMediaStupidTelevisionBrokenBecomingShameWatching Television Book:For Keeps Source: For Keeps
“Throughout all ranks of society, from the successful merchant, which is the highest, to the domestic serving man, which is the lowest, they are all too actively employed to read, except at such broken moments as may suffice for a peep at a newspaper. It is for this reason, I presume, that every American newspaper is more or less a magazine.” MenMayReasonMomentsReadingUnited StatesSuccessfulBrokenHighestNewspapersMagazinesServingLowestEmployedMerchants Book:Domestic Manners of the Americans Source: Domestic Manners of the Americans
“Being gay, the last time I looked, had nothing to do with reading a balance book, fixing a broken bone or changing a spark plug.” BookLastsReadingBrokenBalanceGayBonesSparksLast TimeFixingPlugsBeing GayBroken Bone Author:William J. Clinton
“The Cheney team had, for example, technological supremacy over the National Security Council staff. That is to say, they could read their e-mails. I remember one particular member of the N.S.C. staff wouldn't use e-mail because he knew they were reading it. He did a test case, kind of like the Midway battle, when we'd broken the Japanese code. He thought he'' broken the code, so he sent a test e-mail out that he knew would rile Scooter [Libby], and within an hour Scooter was in his office.” KindUseRememberReadingHoursCasesTeamSecurityExampleParticularBrokenBattleMembersOfficeTestsCodeMailStaffTechnologicalNational SecurityCouncilSupremacySecurity CouncilMidwayScooters Author:Lawrence Wilkerson
“A lot of people who want to see the short story have a renaissance of readership - they tend to think of short stories, and sometimes poems too, as being well-suited to the way we now live, with all of these broken-up bits of time. I hope they're right, but my sense is that our fiction reading has become, if anything, more cherished as a kind of escape from fragmentation.” PeopleIfsThinkingWayWantWellsKindSometimesStoriesReadingBitsFictionBrokenShort StoryRenaissanceBroken UpReadershipFragmentation Author:Lorin Stein