Wherever the choice has had to be made between the man of reason and the madman, the world has unhesitatingly followed the madman.

A gramme is better than a damn.

he had been making an unsuccessful effort to write something about nothing in particular

Nobody needs to go anywhere else. We are all, if we only knew it, already there. If I only knew who in fact I am, I should cease to behave as what I think I am; and if I stopped behaving as what I think I am, I should know who I am. What in fact I am, if only the Manichee I think I am would allow me to know it, is the reconciliation of yes and no lived out in total acceptance and the blessed experience of Not-Two. In religion all words are dirty words. Anybody who gets eloquent about Buddha, or God, or Christ, ought to have his mouth washed out with carbolic soap.

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

De Sade is the one completely consistent and thoroughgoing revolutionary of history.

Indifference to all the refinements of life--it's really shocking. Just Calvinism, that's all. Calvinism without the excuse of Calvin's theology.