Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.

That is a very good question. I don't know the answer. But can you tell me the name of a classical Greek shoemaker?

An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.

I'm the end of the line; absurd and appalling as it may seem, serious New York theater has died in my lifetime.

But now, instead of discussion and argument, brute force rises up to the rescue of discomfited error, and crushes truth and right into the dust. 'Might makes r…

On the eventual death of racism: 'What ever truth drops on it eventually grinds to a powder.'

First silence. Then denial. Then support of the insupportable. Then vilification of the dissenters. The pattern is as old as time.