The Americans are clever. They thoroughly understand things that have to do with money, war, death, sickness. And there is also a real tradition of skepticism in this country.

Everybody has two legs, two lobes to the brain which is why we tend to be interested in symmetry, always balancing things.

For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.

Write something, even if it's just a suicide note.

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.

Without communism ... our state lacks a Wizard of Oz to terrify all the people all the time. So the state looks inward, at the true enemy, who turns out to be - who else? the people of the United States.

For true happiness, it is not enough to be successful oneself . . . one's friends must fail.