A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

Compiled by William Kuhns
©2026 Marshall McLuhan Estate

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As soon as the public exists, the author exists. Until the author exists the public does not exist. They make each other. So, when Montaigne discovered the public, he discovered self-expression as the same moment.
“Television in a New Light” (1967), p 97
Quote #1218
Year: 1967
Chapters: Audience, Public, Mass | Complementarities
↪ Also at #562

Drawn to McLuhan #7

Illustration of a young girl blowing out a cake covered with far more lit candles than her stated age, under a "Happy 8th Birthday!" banner, surrounded by cheering children and wrapped gifts.
“We live years ahead of our thinking.”
Illustration of a man in a "YAY ME!" hoodie holding cash, suspended and controlled like a marionette by strings attached to a giant grinning money-bag figure overhead, cheered on by a large crowd.
“The man of great wealth in the new information world is a puppet employee of his own wealth.”
Illustration of an ornate gold picture frame containing a headless figure in a navy suit and red tie standing before draped curtains, with an engraved plaque below.
“The irrational has become the major dimension of experience in our world.”
Stylized photo-illustration of a jazz quintet (trumpet, saxophone, upright bass, piano, and drums) performing on a dim stage, with colorful glowing sound waves swirling around the instruments.
“Jazz is a survival strategy for people harassed by cacophony.”
Comic-style illustration of a man with an eyepatch peering fearfully from inside a wooden shack while a long line of identical men wearing dark sunglasses and carrying white canes march past outside.
“In the land of the blind the one eyed man is a hunted criminal.”
Illustration of a lone hiker with a walking stick standing at the edge of a smoking volcanic crater on a rocky mountain trail, with a peaceful green village valley visible in the distance beyond the clouds.
“For our problems, like our means and opportunities, are of a scope beyond those of any previous age.”
Painterly illustration of two seagulls swooping and diving through looping, ribbon-like flight trails against a blue-to-orange sunset sky, framed by large quotation marks.
“Conversation is, for me, something like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a game in which you play all sorts of nose-dives and air-tumbles.”
Illustration of a teenage girl taking a selfie in her bedroom, whose walls are covered edge to edge with dozens of Polaroid-style photos of friends and family.
The nobody in real life is a person who becomes quite intractable [in demanding] "Who am I" and "How do I re-establish my image, myself in this world."
Illustration of a young woman with a long braid sitting on a park bench in a leafy park, anxiously looking at her phone with a speech bubble showing a text message about keeping a relationship secret from her parents.
“And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside.”
© The Estate of Marshall McLuhan