They tell me that So-and-So, who does not write prefaces, is no charlatan. Well, I am. I first caught the ear of the British public on a cart in Hyde Park, to the blaring of brass bands,and this . . . because . . . I am a natural-born mountebank.

The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.

The goal of an artist is to create the definitive work that cannot be surpassed.

Murder and capital punishment are not opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed their kind. It is the deed that teaches not the name we give it.

The heretic is always better dead. And mortal eyes cannot distinguish the saint from the heretic.

The only power a god can teach is the power of doing without happiness.

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.