It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Look at this poet William Carlos Williams: he is primitive and native, and his roots are in raw forest and violent places; he is word-sick and place-crazy. He admires strength, but for what? Violence! This is the cult of the frontier mind.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self-service populace, and all our specious comforts -the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria -are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.

Man hoards himself when he has nothing to give away.

We are ruled by chance but never have enough patience to accept its despotism.

No country has suffered so much from the ruins of war while being at peace as the American.