All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery.

It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.

If I had to make a list of six books which were to be preserved when all others were destroyed, I would certainly put Gulliver's Travels among them.

All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery.

Four legs gooood, two legs baaad!

A dirty joke is not, of course, a serious attack on morality, but it is a sort of mental rebellion, a momentary wish that things were otherwise.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.