Richard Betts:

In times of change, people wonder more consciously about how the world works.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells:

If Ricky Donnell Ross sensed that he had been a pawn for forces he could barely understand, he probably wasn't wrong. The question was: What forces?

Adam Sternbergh, on "House of Cards":

It's a vision of American government not as we wish it were, but as we secretly fear it is.

Mark Danner:

Though we have become accustomed to President Obama telling us, as he most recently did in the State of the Union address, that "America must move off a permanent war footing," these words have come to sound, in their repetition, less like the orders of a commander in chief than the pleas of one lonely man hoping to persuade. What are these words, after all, next to the iron realities of the post–September 11 world?

Rebecca Solnit:

It's as though death came riding in on a pale horse and someone said: "What? You don't like horses?"

Molly Crabapple:

So much of the difference between the experiences of rich and poor comes down to kindness. Kindness is scarce. Kindness must be bought.

Christopher Matthews:

44% of Americans are living with less than $5,887 in savings for a family of four. 56% percent of us have subprime credit.

Mehrsa Baradaran:

Approximately 88 million people in the United States, or 28 percent of the population, have no bank account at all, or do have a bank account, but primarily rely on check-cashing storefronts, payday lenders, title lenders, or even pawnshops to meet their financial needs.

Natalie Angier:

41 percent of babies are now born out of wedlock.

David Cole:

Americans face a one in 3.5 million chance of being killed in a terrorist attack, but a one in 22,000 chance of being murdered.

Alain de Botton:

Our desire to have luxury cheaply is the real problem. If the route to your table were dignified and ethical at every stage, a lemon would cost more, of course. But maybe then we'd stop taking lemons for granted and find their zest all the keener.

Richard Biehl, Police Chief of Dayton, Ohio:

I want them to be worried that we're watching.

I want them to be worried that they never know when we're overhead.

Simon Critchley:

We always have to acknowledge that we might be mistaken.

When we forget that, then we forget ourselves and the worst can happen.

Louis Menand:

We fall in love with our hunches, and we really, really hate to be wrong.

We are not natural falsificationists: we would rather find more reasons for believing what we already believe than look for reasons that we might be wrong.

An exchange from "Doubt", with Philip Seymour Hoffman:

Father Brendan Flynn: You haven't the slightest proof of anything!

Sister Aloysius Beauvier: But I have my certainty!

Joan Didion:

The apparent ease of California life is an illusion, and those who believe the illusion real live here in only the most temporary way.

James Temple:

San Francisco changes because the world changes. It was formed in a gold rush and reshaped by every one that followed.

Paul Rogers, on California:

Less rain fell in 2013 than in any year since California became a state in 1850.

Danielle Steel, on San Francisco:

It's all shorts and hiking boots and Tevas -- it's as if everyone is dressed to go on a camping trip.

Jenna Wortham, on Twitter:

It's less about drifting down the stream, absorbing what you can while you float, and more about trying to make the flashiest raft to float on, gathering fans and accolades as you go. We're all milling about, infinitely hovering, waiting for our chance to speak, to add something clever to conversation, even when we're better off not saying much at all.

David Graeber:

It's as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working.

Josh Bryant:

Some of the biggest companies in the world have security that is only as good as a minimum-wage phone support worker who has the power to reset your account. And they have valid business reasons for giving them this power.

David Foster Wallace:

The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water."

Tim Harford:

Nothing about Facebook makes sense until you view it as a well-honed system for persuading you to check Facebook one more time.

Maureen O'Connor:

Unfollowing is a joy. Everyone should try it.

Pope Francis:

What is it, then, that helps us, in the digital environment, to grow in humanity and mutual understanding? We need, for example, to recover a certain sense of deliberateness and calm. This calls for time and the ability to be silent and to listen.

Barack Obama:

There is a reason why BlackBerrys and iPhones are not allowed in the White House Situation Room.

Evgeny Morozov:

Many of us have bought into the simplistic narrative -- convenient to both Washington and Silicon Valley -- that we just need more laws, more tools, more transparency.

Thomas Powers, in 2005:

More is what Congress is ready to support and fund, more is what the President wants, and more is what we are going to get.

President Barack Obama, in 2014:

There is an inevitable bias not only within the intelligence community, but among all of us who are responsible for national security, to collect more information about the world, not less.

Garry Wills:

Keeping up morale in this vast, shady enterprise is something impressed on [the President] by all manner of commitments. He becomes the prisoner of his own power.

Jeff Jarvis:

I am less concerned with what government knows about me than what we don't know about government.

Tony Judt:

Evil, above all evil on the scale practiced by Nazi Germany, can never be satisfactorily remembered. The very enormity of the crime renders all memorialisation incomplete. Its inherent implausibility -- the sheer difficulty of conceiving of it in calm retrospect -- opens the door to diminution and even denial. Impossible to remember as it truly was, it is inherently vulnerable to being remembered as it wasn't. Against this challenge memory itself is helpless.

Donald Rumsfeld:

Everything seems amazing, in retrospect.

Arundhati Roy:

To love. To be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all, to watch.
To try and understand.
To never look away.
And never, never to forget.

Winston Churchill:

The essential aspects of democracy are the freedom of the individual, within the framework of laws passed by Parliament, to order his life as he pleases, and the uniform enforcement of tribunals independent of the executive. The laws are based on Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, the Petition of Right and others. Without this foundation there can be no freedom or civilisation, anyone being at the mercy of officials and liable to be spied upon and betrayed even in his own home. As long as these rights are defended, the foundations of freedom are secure. I see no reason why democracies should not be able to defend themselves without sacrificing these fundamental values.

Steve Ballmer:

You just had to be with the bear, otherwise you would be under the bear.

Matt Higgins:

There are bears that peel and bears that don't peel. We target peeling bears.

George Szirtes:

The translator was tracking the bear but kept wondering why the bear was wearing his shoes. Bears are thieves, he muttered.

Haruki Murakami:

If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation.

Robert Ito:

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described imagery from "The Shining." The gentleman seen with the weird guy in the bear suit is wearing a tuxedo, but not a top hat.

Clarinda Harriss:

The Tragedy of Hats is that you can never see the one you're wearing,
that no one believes the lies they tell,
that they grow to be more famous than you,
that you could die in one but you won't be buried in it.

John Gruber:

When your own employees don't use or support your product, the problem is with the product, not the employees.

Metafilter Wisdom:

If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.

Donald Rumsfeld:

Today can sometimes look worse than yesterday -- or even two months ago. What matters is the overall trajectory: Where do things stand today when compared to what they were five years ago?

Eric Schmidt, in 2009:

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

Marco Arment, in 2014:

Google won't break into your home. You'll invite them in.

Mat Honan:

In a few years, we might all be Glassholes.

Jean-Luc Godard:

It's not where you take things from -- it's where you take them to.

Nicholas Watt:

Britain has won the right to export pig semen to China in a deal worth £45m a year. Pigs will not be flying but their seed will take to the air.

Sarah Zhang:

All the unknowns around exploding hog manure foam suggest being careful about unintended consequences.

Noah Rayman:

Walmart customers in China who purchased "Five Spice" donkey meat can be reimbursed because the product may contain fox meat.

Pete Wells:

When we hear the words Donkey Sauce, which part of the donkey are we supposed to think about?