Quotes from the website

This is the Quotes From The Website category.

All quotes by Marshall McLuhan and others from “The Medium is the Massage” (the lecture, the book, the film, the magazine and/or the record, single and remix).

“I do believe it. I really believe it.”

— discussion in the serie ‘Word Count’ on WBAI-FM with John Culkin and Quentin Fiore. Moderator: Samuel Blazer.

“Often we do not know what we think till a question is put to us.”

— Elias Canetti, “Crowds and Power”

“Everyone has the best seat.”

— John Cage, “Silence: Lectures and Writings”

A ditto, ditto device

“Movies are better than ever!”

— Marshall McLuhan

“The shock of recognition!”

— Marshall McLuhan

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.

— A.N. Whitehead, “Science and the Modern World”

“Lucky cocks for whom the audible-visible-gnosible-edible world existed.”

— James Joyce, “Finnegans Wake”

and how!

There ain’t no grammatical errors in a non-literate society.

— Marshall McLuhan, see also “The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man”, p. 238

“Cool” means identification with the creative process.”

— Marshall McLuhan, see also “Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man”, p. 24

“They [I Ching] told me to continue what I was doing, and to spread JOY and revolution.”

— John Cage, quoted by Calvin Tomkins in “The Bride and the Bachelors”

“Well, the future of work as knowing, the future of identity as involvement, brings one around to the idea of perhaps roles instead of jobs.”

— Marshall McLuhan

“If I don’t smoke, someone else will…”

— Erik Satie quoted in “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)” by John Cage

“There’ll probably be some music, but we’ll manage to find a quiet corner where we can talk.”

— Erik Satie, quoted in “Silence: Lectures and Writings” by John Cage

“Uh-ah.”

— Marshall McLuhan

“{Growing up—that is our new work, and it is total.} [Mere instruction will not suffice.]”

— Marshall McLuhan, see “Address at Vision 65” , p. 4

The wheel …is an extension of the foot.

— Marshall McLuhan, see also “Understanding Media: The Extensions Of Man”, p. 46

“Four P.M. throughout the world. Whether we like it or not…”

— Buckminster Fuller, quoted in “Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse)” by John Cage

“I know, I know.”

“Where is A, it precedes B, and B follows A, and precedes C.”

— Bertrand Russell, “The Prinicple of Individuation” in “Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits”

“{,.;:}?!{‘’-“”}”

“Drop this jiggery-pokery and talk straight turkey.”

— James Joyce, “Finnegans Wake”

“Advertisements are all good; the news is all bad.”

— Marshall McLuhan, see “Address at Vision 65” , p. 8

“[And] LSD is merely one little side issue in TV effects.”

— Marshall McLuhan

“Whence did the wond’rous mystic art arise, Of painting SPEECH, and speaking to the eyes? That we by tracing magic lines are taught, How to embody, and to colour THOUGHT?”

— translation of Brébeuf’s verse translation of Lucan’s “Pharsalia” in “The Origin and Progress of Writing” by Thomas Astle