"Maybe because our culture has become small, we need small things to believe in."

http://www.tnr.com/book/review/sea-cultural-history-john-mack

"While some of these books contain interesting enough factoids, for the most part they mistake ubiquity for significance. Much like the Germans of Bismarck’s time and the Brooklyn hipster down the block from me, the Egyptians brewed beer! But so what?"