Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

A library is many things, but particularly it is a place where books live, and where you can get in touch with other people, and other thoughts, through books... Books hold most of the secrets of the world, most of the thoughts that men and women have had.

It seemed to me that I should have a desk, even though I had no real need for a desk. I was afraid that if I had no desk in my room my life would seem too haphazard.

Geese are friends to no one, they bad mouth everybody and everything. But they are companionable once you get used to their ingratitude and false accusations.

Deathlessness should be arrived at in a... haphazard fashion. Loving fame as much as any man, we shall carve our initials in the shell of a tortoise and turn him loose in a peat bog.

A “fraternity” is the antithesis offraternity. The first (that is, the order or organization) is predicated on the idea of exclusion; the second (that is, the abstract thing) is based on a feeling of total equality.

The H-bomb rather favors small nations that doesn't as yet possess it; they feel slightly more free to jostle other nations, having discovered that a country can stick its tongue out quite far these days without provoking war, so horrible are war's consequences.