Civilization is a youth with a molotov cocktail in his hand. Culture is the Soviet tank or L.A. cop that guns him down.

A good book is a kind of paper club, serving to rouse the slumbrous and to silence the obtuse.

A man is not aware of his virtues (if any). Nevertheless, one hopes that they exist.

There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.

The "terror" of the French Revolution lasted for ten years. The terror that preceded and led to it lasted for a thousand years.

The response to my books from my East Coast friends has been wildly various, running the gamut from 'bad' to 'very bad.' (Is there another gamut?)

Roosters: The cry of the male chicken is the most barbaric yawp in all of nature.