Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

And the ones who would not make war? Can they stop it?

All the contact I have had with politics has left me feeling as though I had been drinking out of spitoons.

I do not think I had ever seen a nastier-looking man. Under the black hat, when I had first seen them, the eyes had been those of an unsuccessful rapist.

If a writer stops observing he is finished. But he does not have to observe consciously nor think how it will be useful. Perhaps that would be true at the beginning. But later everything he sees goes into the great reserve of things he knows or has seen.

You’ll ache. And you’re going to love it. It will crush you. And you’re still going to love all of it.