Art is one of the means whereby man seeks to redeem a life which is experienced as chaotic, senseless, and largely evil.

In spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody. The essential substance of every thought and feeling remains incommunicable, locked up in the impenetrable strong-room of the individual soul and body. Our life is a sentence of perpetual solitary confinement.

In actual life a downward movement may sometimes be made the beginning of an ascent.

One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.

Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons - that's philosophy.

I dread the inevitable acceleration of American world domination which will be the result of it all...Europe will no longer be Europe.

Feasts must be solemn and rare, or else they cease to be feasts.