A dictionary of Marshall McLuhan’s quotations

…in the new quantum mechanics, the term interface implies a resonant interval in which there are no connections in matter as understood in the new physics, but there is a perpetual resonating interval, between particles, or among particles, and this resonance is the interface and it is in this interval of resonance that the action takes place, it leads on to those basic matters about our own world of the drop out, because the dropout is a person who experiences the need to set up more space between himself and things, he wants more room, he wants an interface, he wants a kind of resonant dialogue, he wants to rap, to chat and empathize with everybody about everything and this constitutes an interface of change. In dialogue people undergo change, it isn't just the passing of gossip back and forth, but it's a kind of interrelating by which people feel they are change, they are getting with it, they are getting involved, they are participating. All of these things that seems to me profoundly relate to the Rosary and to the church and the mystical body which is also amazingly, instant, surround, interface at source of change, renewal and of endless source of nourishment to everybody.
“A Matter Of Faith”, Part 1, TV episode of Father Peyton's Family Theatre (1972); Youtube; transcript: 8.26
Year: 1972
↪ Also at #1487
Compiled by William Kuhns
© 2026, The Estate of Marshall McLuhan