Too much consistency is as bad for the mind as for the body.

I know very dimly when I start what's going to happen. I just have a very general idea, and then the thing develops as I write.

What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.

The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful --because the reproached self isn't abandoned; it remains intact.

Like every man of sense and good feeling, I abominate work.

God isn't the son of Memory; He's the son of Immediate Experience. You can't worship a spirit in spirit, unless you do it now. Wallowing in the past may be good literature. As wisdom, it's hopeless. Time Regained is Paradise Lost, and Time Lost is Paradise Regained. Let the dead bury their dead. If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you've got to die to every other moment.

You've got to be hurt and upset; otherwise you can't think of the really good, penetrating, X-rayish phrases.