The place smelled of fairgrounds, of lazy crowds, of nights when you stayed out because you couldn't go to bed, and it smelled like New York, of its calm and brutal indifference.

Trotsky rises to give me his hand, then sits at his desk, gently allowing his regard to light on my person.

It just happened. As though a moment comes when it's both necessary and natural to make a decision that has long since been made.

I write fast, because I have not the brains to write slow.

We live in a time when writers do not always have barriers around them

I saw Mussolini tirelessly contemplate a parade of thousands of young men.

If each one of us could make just one other happy, the whole world would know happiness.