All right, here we go with the kickoff. Harmon will probably try to sq — The Play

"I called all the officials together and there were some pale faces. The penalty flags were against Stanford for coming onto the field. I say, did anybody blow a whistle? They say no. I say, were all the laterals legal? Yes. Then the line judge, Gordon Riese, says to me, Charlie, the guy scored on that. And I said, What? I had no idea the guy had scored. Actually when I heard that I was kind of relieved. I thought we really would have had a problem if they hadnt scored, because, by the rules, we could have awarded a touchdown [to Cal] for [Stanford] players coming onto the field. I didnt want to have to make that call.I wasnt nervous at all when I stepped out to make the call; maybe I was too dumb. Gee, it seems like it was yesterday. Anyway, when I stepped out of the crowd, there was dead silence in the place. Then when I raised my arms, I thought I had started World War III. It was like an atomic bomb had gone off."

"As the chaos of The Play unfolded, concluding at our end of the field on the opposite side of the end zone, we tried to figure out what had happened. We remained confident. Surely that slapstick finish wouldnt be ruled a touchdown. The officials hustled to gather at midfield, and as they talked, the cheering of the Cal fans died down. The stadium became so quiet you could hear a heart drop. You just didnt know whether the heart would be blue and gold, or cardinal and white.The officials kept talking, and the longer they talked, the sense of foreboding in my stomach swelled like a pan of Jiffy-Pop. If they had this much to discuss, that meant there might be a touchdown. I turned to my friend and said, "This isnt good."What happened next is as vivid in my memory as the birth of my children. The referee, Charles Moffett, signaled touchdown, and you could see the news travel. The Cal fans reacted as if they were performing the wave. Not the normal wave, which races around the field. The cheering began at field level and spread to the top of the stadium, then rebounded and gathered speed as it went back down. The momentum seemed to carry the fans over the wall and onto the field, and in a matter of moments, the stands emptied."

"In the life of the mass-order, the culture of the generality tends to conform to the demands of the average human being. Spirituality decays through being diffused among the masses when knowledge is impoverished in every possible way by rationalisation until it becomes accessible to the crude understanding of all."

"The first thing I remember about the world — and I pray that it may be the last — is that I was a stranger in it. This feeling, which everyone has in some degree, and which is, at once, the glory and desolation of homo sapiens, provides the only thread of consistency that I can detect in my life."

"Jewish custom, which traces descent solely from the mother, is more sensible and more discreet. Our own lawgivers cant accept the fact that there are many things in family life that are best kept shrouded in mystery."

"One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved."

"If it fulfills our hopes, this center will be, at once, a symbol and a reflection and a hope. It will symbolize our belief that the world of creation and thought are at the core of all civilization. Only recently in the White House we helped commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare. The political conflicts and ambitions of his England are known to the scholar and to the specialist. But his plays will forever move men in every corner of the world. The leaders that he wrote about live far more vividly in his words than in the almost forgotten facts of their own rule. Our civilization, too, will largely survive in the works of our creation. There is a quality in art which speaks across the gulf dividing man from man and nation from nation, and century from century. That quality confirms the faith that our common hopes may be more enduring than our conflicting hostilities. Even now men of affairs are struggling to catch up with the insights of great art. The stakes may well be the survival of civilization. The personal preferences of men in government are not important--except to themselves. However, it is important to know that the opportunity we give to the arts is a measure of the quality of our civilization. It is important to be aware that artistic activity can enrich the life of our people, which really is the central object of Government. It is important that our material prosperity liberate and not confine the creative spirit."

"I did not go to join Kurtz there and then. I did not. I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My destiny! Droll thing life is — that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself — that comes too late — a crop of unextinguishable regrets. I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable grayness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmosphere of tepid skepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary. If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle than some of us think it to be. I was within a hairs-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it. Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up — he had judged. The horror! He was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief; it had candor, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth — the strange commingling of desire and hate."