What matters finally is not the world's judgment of oneself but one's own judgment of the world.... Any writer who lacks this final arrogance will not survive very long in America.

Although the notion of one god may give comfort to those in need of a daddy, it reminds the rest of us that the totalitarian society is grounded upon the concept of God the father. One paternal god, one paternal leader. Authority is absolute.

Litigation takes the place of sex at middle age.

What is there to say, finally, except that pain is bad and pleasure good, life all, death nothing.

Nixon was a Southern Rim President, and so antipathetic to the old guard.

Actually, there is no such thing as a homosexual person, any more than there is such a thing as a heterosexual person. The words are adjectives describing sexual acts, not people. The sexual acts are entirely normal; if they were not, no one would perform them.

All in all, I would not have missed this century for the world.