Literature and fiction are two entirely different things. Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

Boyhood is a most complex and incomprehensible thing. Even when one has been through it, one does not understand what it was. A man can never quite understand a boy, even when he has been the boy.

War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.

The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality.

For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.

There is also an insulting speech about 'one grey day just like another'. You might as well talk about one green tree like another.

The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.