The discoveries of yesterday are the truisms of tomorrow, because we can add to our knowledge but cannot subtract from it.

The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know.

The cell door slammed behind Rubishov.

I profoundly admire Aldous Huxley, both for his philosophy and uncompromising sincerity. But I disagree with his advocacy of 'the chemical opening of doors into the Other World', and with his belief that drugs can procure 'what Catholic theologians call a gratuitous grace'. Chemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying; in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one's own nervous system.

Newton's apple and Cezanne's apple are discoveries more closely related than they seem.

In my youth I regarded the universe as an open book, printed in the language of equations, whereas now it appears to me as a text written in invisible ink, of which in our rare moments of grace we are able to decipher a small segment.

Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.