Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won't be.

To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.

Young people are more hopeful at a certain age than adults, but I suspect that's glandular. As for children, I keep as far from them as possible. I don't like the sight of them. The scale is all wrongs. The heads tend to be too big for the bodies, and the hands and feet are a disaster. They keep falling into things. The nakedness of their bad character! We adults have learned how to disguise our terrible character, but children, well, they are like grotesque drawings of us. They should be neither seen nor heard, and no one must make another one.

No reform ever came from the bottom, and it was always people who understood how the ruling class worked who turned out to be the reformers.

Reality is something the human race doesn't handle very well.

Where there is no desire or pursuits, there is no wholeness. But there are satisfying lesser states, fragments.

Anybody, at any time, may equally find himself victim or executioner.