I was once invited to take part in a heroic, possibly fatal enterprise, but I declined, mainly on account of sloth.

A critic is to an author as a fungus to an oak.

For this world that men have made, none of us is bad enough. For the world that made us, none is good enough.

When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.

One thing more dangerous than getting between a grizzly sow and her cub is getting between a businessman and a dollar bill.

There's another disadvantage to the use of the flashlight: like many other mechanical gadgets it tends to separate a man from the world around him. If I switch it on my eyes adapt to it and I can see only the small pool of light it makes in front of me; I am isolated. Leaving the flashlight in my pocket where it belongs, I remain a part of the environment I walk through and my vision though limited has no sharp or definite boundary.

The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of democracy. Not for nothing was the revolver called an "equalizer."