To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.

The creation of a work of art, like an act of love, is our one small 'yes' at the center of a vast 'no.'

Next to "I win," "I told you so" are the sweetest words.

But women are always attracted to power. I do not think there could ever be a conqueror so bloody that most women would not willingly lie with him in the hope of bearing a son who would be every bit as ferocious as the father.

I do not admire 'the people,' as such. No one really does. Their folk wisdom is usually false, their instincts predatory. Even their sense of survival - so highly developed in the individual - goes berserk in the mass. A crowd is a fool.

To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.

You can only have a war with another country. You can't have a war with bad temper or a war against paranoids.