In former days, everyone found the assumption of innocence so easy; today we find fatally easy the assumption of guilt.

That is the point of quotations. One can use another's words to be insulting.

What marks a writer is this: until she - or he, of course - writes down whatever happened, turns it into a story, it hasn't really happened, it hasn't shape, form, reality.

In former days, everyone found the assumption of innocence so easy; today we find fatally easy the assumption of guilt.

Once you are thought selfish, not only are you forgiven a life designed mainly to suit yourself, which in anyone else would appear monstrous, but if an impulse to generosity should by chance overpower you, you will get five times the credit of some poor selfless soul who has been oozing kindness for years.

Male friends do not always face each other; they stand side by side, facing the world.

You can flush my ashes down the toilet, for all I care.