I believe one would write better if the climate were bad. If there were a lot of wind and storms for example.

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

Who lives longer? The man who takes heroin for two years and dies, or a man who lives on roast beef, water and potatoes 'till 95? One passes his 24 months in eternity. All the years of the beefeater are lived only in time.

Marble, I perceive, covers a multitude of sins.

Given the nature of spiders, webs are inevitable. And given the nature of human beings, so are religions. Spiders can't help making fly-traps, and men can't help making symbols. That's what the human brain is there for - the turn the chaos of given experience into a set of manageable symbols.

I'm claiming the right to be unhappy.

In the world of ideas everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled.