“Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams—Joseph intepreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, and ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.”

—E.B. White, Writings for the New Yorker 1927-1976, 1991, as quoted by Marcel Danesi in Brands, 2006.