Joseph Bottum

“Anything that keeps old words in circulation is to be treasured, the French revolution be damned.”

“(Dune's Frank) Herbert made religion the inescapable instrument of cultural change.”

“People who are easily embarrassed – those who blush too often and too soon – usually end up retreating from excellence.”

“We have a name for the sum of grievances and compromises, this sheer normality of life lived among other people. We call it civilization. Culture, society, the workaday interactions of ordinary time.”