The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.

The trouble with fiction," said John Rivers, "is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense.

The only consistent people are the dead

The legs, for example, of that chair--how miraculous their tubularity, how supernatural their polished smoothness! I spent several minutes--or was it several centuries?--not merely gazing at those bamboo legs, but actually being them---or rather being myself in them; or, to be still more accurate (for "I" was not involved in the case, nor in a certain sense were "they") being my Not-self in the Not-self which was the chair.

When the individual feels, the community reels.

It takes two to make a murder. There are born victims, born to have their throats cut, as the cut-throats are born to be hanged.

All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects.