Daniel J. Boorstin

“An image is not simply a trademark, a design, a slogan or an easily remembered picture. It is a studiously crafted personality profile of an individual, institution, corporation, product or service.”

“The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes 'sight-seeing.'”

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.”

“Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.”

“As individuals and as a nation, we now suffer from social narcissism. The beloved Echo of our ancestors, the virgin America, has been abandoned. We have fallen in love with our own image, with images of our making, which turn out to be images of ourselves.”

“A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.”

“The most important American addition to the World Experience was the simple surprising fact of America. We have helped prepare mankind for all its later surprises.”

“We need not be theologians to see that we have shifted responsibility for making the world interesting from God to the newspaperman.”

“The force of the advertising word and image dwarfs the power of other literature in the 20th century.”

“Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.”

“A best-seller was a book which somehow sold well because it was selling well.”

“We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.”

“Human models are more vivid and more persuasive than explicit moral commands.”

“The world of crime is a last refuge of the authentic, uncorrupted, spontaneous event.”

“Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.”

“As you make your bed, so you must lie in it.”

“The celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness.”

“A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you.”

“I've learned any fool can write a bad ad, but it takes a real genius to keep his hands off a good one.”

“Reading is like the sex act - done privately, and often in bed.”