I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.

Religion has been an enormous multiplier of tribal suspicion and hatred.

Talking, it seemed to me, was the point of adult existence.

Religion makes intelligent people say and do wacky things, believe and affirm crazy things.

I don’t have a body, I am a body.

I sympathize afresh with the mighty Voltaire who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies.

Evelyn Waugh was in error when he said that in New York there was a neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistook for energy. There was, rather, a tensile excitement in the air which made one think - made me think for many years - that time spent asleep in New York was somehow time wasted. Whether this thought has lengthened or shortened my life I shall never know, but it has certainly colored it.