I believe in pleasure. Orgiastic pleasure has it’s place. Intellectual pleasure has it’s place. Social pleasure has it’s place. There’s a certain pleasure of the life of the mind that cannot be denied. It’s true that you might be socially isolated because you’re in the library or at home and so on, but you’re intensely alive. In fact, you’re much more alive than the folks walking the streets of New York in crowds where there’s no intellectual interrogation or questioning going on. But if you read John Ruskin, Mark Twain, or my god, Herman Melville…you almost have to throw the book against the wall because you’re so intensely alive that you need a break.
-Cornel West, transcribed from the film Examined Life (2008), Dir. Astra Taylor
