Laughter and weeping, the Greek masks of comedy and tragedy, mark the extremes of a continuous spectrum; both provide channels for the overflow of emotion; both are

Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.

I am not sure whether ethical absolutes exist. But I am sure that we have to act as if they existed or civilization perishes.

The cell door slammed behind Rubishov.

In the social equation, the value of a single life is nil; in the cosmic equation, it is infinite... Not only communism, but any political movement which implicitly relies on purely utilitarian ethics, must become a victim to the same fatal error. It is a fallacy as naïve as a mathematical teaser, and yet its consequences lead straight to Goya's Disasters, to the reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka.

True creativity often starts where language ends.

Woe unto the defeated, whom history treads into the dust.