I do not think one can assess a writer's motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in ... but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape.

We believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run. Pacifism is founded largely on this belief. Don't resist evil, and it will somehow destroy itself. But why should it? What evidence is there that it does... unless conquered from the outside by military force?

The war is waged against its own subjects and its object is not the victory...but to keep the very structure of society intact.

I think I exist,' he said wearily. 'I am conscious of my own identity. I was born, and I shall die. I have arms and legs. I occupy a particular point in space. No other solid object can occupy the same point simultaneously.

Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss.

You must be an intellectual. A normal person would never believe a thing like that.

Until one has some kind of professional relationship with books, one does not discover how bad the majority of them are.