I learned that to be amusing was not to be frivolous and that language - always the language - was the magic key as much to prose as to poetry.

The moment of near despair is quite often the moment that precedes courage.

There's no Hell mentioned in the Old Testament. The punishment of the dead is not specified there. It's only with gentle Jesus, meek and mild, that the idea of eternal torture for minor transgressions is introduced.

Skepticism rather than credulity is the highest principle that the human intellect can use to ennoble our existence.

Anyone who can look me in the eye and say they prefer the story of Moses or Jesus or Mohammed to the life of Socrates is intellectually defective.

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

The quality you most admire in a woman? Courage moral and physical: "anima"-the ability to visualize the mind and need of a man. Also a sense of the absurd.