A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.

Bridge-players tell me that there must be some money on the game 'or else people won't take it seriously'. Apparently it's like that. Your bid - for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity - will not be serious if nothing much is staked on it. And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are playing not for counters or for sixpences but for every penny you have in the world.

We treat our dogs as if they were "almost human": that is why they really become "almost human" in the end.

I will not be at the mercy of the telephone!

We have discovered that the scheme of 'outlawing war' has made war more like an outlaw without making it less frequent and that to banish the knight does not alleviate the suffering of the peasant.

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

We cannot fully understand the relations of time and choice until we are beyond both.