Boredom: the desire for desires.

A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent for novels, and the time lost in that reading which should be instructively employed. When this poison infects the mind, it destroys its tone and revolts it against wholesome reading . . . . the result is a bloated imagination, sickly judgment, and disgust towards all the real business of life.

"Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree" (Ezra Pound). Accordingly, any words that don’t contribute meaning to a passage dilute its power. Less is always better. Always.

By "drawing the line" I do not mean to exclude ourselves from that society. I do suggest that we must confirm and coalesce our opposition to the surge of degeneracy that now permeates our entertainments, our literature, and our so-called arts. We can no longer casually endure (if not ultimately embrace) the continued downward spiral of our culture's art, literature, and entertainment into the abyss of vile perversion. As Joshua challenged Israel, so we must accept the challenge to "choose you this day whom ye will serve." As Christ taught so directly, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Latter-day Saints can no longer accept the false notion that it is possible to honor the covenants we have made, to be loyal to the Godhead who have revealed themselves to us, and at the same time participate, even in the role of a passive observer, in the practices all about us that are leading to greater and greater degeneracy.

When I get a little money I buy books, and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

"Literature takes a habit of mind that has disappeared. It requires silence, some form of isolation, and sustained concentration in the presence of an enigmatic thing."

Emerson was once asked which, of all the books he had read, had most affected his life. His response was that he could no more remember the books he had read than he could remember the meals he had eaten, but they had made him. All of us are the products of the elements to which we are exposed.