Here are a couple of great quips from Anthony Esolen's book Out of the Ashes:
“The health of a society may be gauged by how full the churches are, those beating hearts of culture and communion.”
“We do not produce many great comedians in the present. We do produce a lot of material for comedians in the future.”
Overall, this is a terrific book. It's like Dreher's Benedict Option but with more hope and a wider range of practical proposals. Reading anything by Esolen is humbling because you realize how much you don't know. Esolen is something of a "Renaissance man," with an amazing grasp of everything from ancient classical literature to Major League baseball to all kinds of physical realities (like electricity). I have not quite finished this book, but the highlights so far have been chapters 5 and 6 on men and women. This book is right up there with other works from Esolen I've read. I highly recommend it!