History is idle gossip about a happening whose truth is lost the instant it has taken place.

The New York Times is the worst in that hardly anybody can write English over there. Most of it reads like slight translations from the German.

I Must warn you, Iris, that I'm not a believer. And though I'm sure that the revelations of other men must be a source of infinite satisfaction to them, individually, I shouldn't for one second be so presumptuous as to make a choice among the many thousands of recorded revelations of truth, accepting one at the expense of all the others: I might so easily choose wrong and get into eternal trouble. And you must admit that the selection is wide, and dangerous to the amateur.

It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.

I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add.

I am glad my life is coming to an end. To think that it might last another five hundred years, now that would be terrible, in my case.

"Terrorism" is a metaphor, it's an abstract noun. It's like having a war on dandruff. It's something from advertising, it's meaningless.