Many writers who choose to be active in the world lose not virtue but time, and that stillness without which literature cannot be made.

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

The brain that doesn't feed itself, eats itself.

Then die. We must all do that. But die, as they say, game.

Private lives should be no business of the State. The State is bad enough as it is. It cannot educate or medicate or feed the people; it cannot do anything but kill the people. No State like that do we want prying into our private lives.

Laughing at someone else is an excellent way of learning how to laugh at oneself; and questioning what seem to be the absurd beliefs of another group is a good way of recognizing the potential absurdity of many of one's own cherished beliefs.

Eisenhower's career demonstrated how it is possible to fool all the people all the time...'I may be stupid,' he once said at a press conference, 'but at least I'm sincere!' Actually, he was neither, but it suited his purpose to play the part of the bumbling man of good will who was 'not an expert in these matters' but somehow would do his best.