Every individual is at once the beneficiary and the victim of the linguistic tradition into which he has been born.

The traveller's-eye view of men and women is not satisfying. A man might spend his life in trains and restaurants and know nothing of humanity at the end. To know, one must be an actor as well as a spectator.

Of course the Dharma-body of the Buddha was the hedge at the bottom of the garden. At the same time, and no less obviously, it was these flowers, it was anything that I - or rather the blessed Not-I - cared to look at.

A competent portraitist knows how to imply the profile in the full face.

Dream in a pragmatic way.

A million million spermatozoa, All of them alive: Out of their cataclysm but one poor Noah Dare hope to survive.

The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the surface .