You get no thanks from your belly-it always forgets what you've just done for it and comes begging again the next day.

I have always had that inner drive, since my birth. And I have always devoted myself gladly to work - to work and to the struggle.

To preserve his life, should a man pay everything that gives it color, scent and excitement?

... a man can safely sacrifice a great deal as long as he clings to the essential.

Patriotism means unqualified and unwavering love for the nation, which implies not uncritical eagerness to serve, not support for unjust claims, but frank assessment of its vices and sins, and penitence for them.

In the camp, this meant committing my verse-many thousands of lines-to memory. To help me with this I improvised decimal counting beads and, in transit prisons, broke up matchsticks and used the fragments as tallies. As I approached the end of my sentences I grew more confident of my powers of memory, and began writing down and memorizing prose-dialogue at first, but then, bit by bit, whole densely written passages. My memory found room for them! It worked. But more and more of my time-in the end as much as one week every month-went into the regular repetition of all I had memorized.

A meek fellow ... is a real godsend in any gang.