It is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.

It is impossible to found a civilization on fear and hatred and cruelty. It would never endure.' 'Why not?' 'It would have no vitality. It would disintegrate. It would commit suicide.

For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

I enjoy talking to you. Your mind appeals to me. It resembles my own mind except that you happen to be insane.

All human relationships must be purchased with money.

I'm fat, but I'm thin inside. Has it ever struck you that there's a thin man inside every fat man, just as they say there's a statue inside every block of stone?