...I believed passionately that Communists were a race of horned men who divided their time equally between the burning of Nancy Drew books and the devising of a plan of nuclear attack that would land the largest and most lethal bomb squarely upon the third-grade class of Thomas Jefferson School in Morristown, New Jersey.

Polite conversation is rarely either.

remember this: no matter how politely or distinctly you ask a Parisian a question he will persist in answering you in French.

What starts love is your ability to stupefy and blind yourself to the point of being able to fall in love. What stops it is waking up.

Democracy is an interesting, even laudable, notion and there is no question but that when compared to Communism, which is too dull, or Fascism, which is too exciting, it emerges as the most palatable form of government.

I'm sure that being sober all these years accounts for my ill humor.

Things that people will say to me, mostly, is that you shouldn't have all these books. It's too expensive.