To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written by men who lived, thought, and felt with style.

...we were back at home, and I had returned to that reassuring but profoundly unsatisfactory state known as 'being in one's right mind.

It is natural to believe in God when you're alone-- quite alone, in the night, thinking about death.

Almost all of us long for peace and freedom; but very few of us have much enthusiasm for the thoughts, feelings, and actions that make for peace and freedom.

Reality, no matter how utopian, seems to be something people need to frequently take a holiday from.

Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.

which is better - to be born stupid into an intelligent society or intelligent into an insane one?