One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

The government is not God. It does not have the right to take away that which it can't return even if it wants to.

Nothing can be accomplished by logic and ethics.

If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.

To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.

I don’t understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses.