Science fiction is, after all, the art of extrapolation.

- Michael Dirda

I sometimes lie awake at night and try to imagine what would be the best period in history to spend one's seventy-odd years.

- Michael Dirda

I have now and again tried to imagine the perfect environment, the ideal conditions for reading: A worn leather armchair on a rainy night? A hammock …

- Michael Dirda

Make sure your message is clear, yet that you are faithful to its complexity.

- Michael Dirda

[Kurt] Vonnegut was a writer whose great gift was that he always seemed to be talking directly to you. He wasn't writing, he wasn't showing off, he w…

- Michael Dirda

Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of emotion, content to follow t…

- Michael Dirda

Throughout history the exemplary teacher has never been just an instructor in a subject; he is nearly always its living advertisement.

- Michael Dirda

I am shocked that we seemed to have learned nothing, absolutely nothing, from Vietnam.

- Michael Dirda

In PLATO AT THE GOOGLEPLEX, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein set out to showcase, in sometimes startling ways, the continuing relevance of a classic philo…

- Michael Dirda