'To read is to be with people who, unlike those around one, do not notice one's existence.'

'… some people mind their own business, some don't.'

A bird.

'… each comma is like a dormant bud on the stalk of the sentence, that can suddenly blossom forth with new life.'

Beans crowding the broth in the bowl.

'So this is the so-called new stuff.'

'… Emerson asserts that what he is withdrawing in order to do is done for the poor. This announces his act as moral, as announcing moral principles whose application will rebuke those who rebuke him for failing his moral obligations. There are two complementary moral principles implied in Emerson's scene. One is: to claim that an action is so important that you must shun your domestic obligations to perform it, you must be able to communicate the hope in which it is undertaken and you must be ready to declare publicly that you are without further explanation, or authority. A public declaration of your uncertainty will limit what it is you can ask people to do, and subject them to. You will have, if you are in political power, to take those over whose lives you have the power of life and death into your confidence. Speaking in confidence is the precise opposite of speaking in slogans and out of untold secrets; in confidence is the way to speak to fellow citizens. The further principle is: to claim your action is called out by your genius you must be comprehensible as serving the poor; the action must weigh itself at every moment against the visible suffering of the world. These seem to me to be principles on which I would be happy to see those in political power over us act upon.'

'… you and me, dreamin about full medical and dental…'

'I talk so plain that a deaf and dumb man can hear me.'