Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

Nothing short of everything will really do.

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

To write fiction, one needs a whole series of inspirations about people in an actual environment, and then a whole lot of work on the basis of those inspirations.

Liberty? Why it doesn't exist. There is no liberty in this world, just gilded cages.

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

Bondage is the life of personality, and for bondage the personal self will fight with tireless resourcefulness and the most stubborn cunning.