In my latest National Post column I say we won't get helpful answers on the Toronto mass shooting unless we ask the right questions.

"I mean treasure is treasure, for heaven’s sake. What’s the difference whether the treasure is money, or property, or even culture, or even just plain knowledge?"

The heroine in J.D. Salinger Franny and Zooey, quoted by Edward Tingley in First Things January 2002

"A wise man hears one word and understands two."

"a Yiddish proverb" quoted in BC Report December 28, 1998

"One science only will one genius fit/ So vast is art, so narrow human wit."

Alexander Pope, quoted in Marshall McLuhan The Gutenberg Galaxy 

"'Preach! Write! Act! Do anything, save to lie down and die!'"

Hester Prynne in Nathanial Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter, quoted in William J. Bennett The Book of Virtues

"If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat."
St. Paul, 2 Thessalonians 3:10

“While some knowledge can be a good thing, sometimes too much is dangerous.”

Ontario Premier Mike Harris on why he filled key cabinet posts with people with limited relevant experience, quoted in The Write File Quarterly Issue #5, Summer 1995