Life would go out in a 'fraction of a second' (that was the phrase), but all night he had been realizing that time depends on clocks and the passage of light. There were no clocks and the light wouldn't change. Nobody really knew how long a second of pain could be. It might last a whole purgatory--or for ever.

Any man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.

I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boggle at a personal Devil.

Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.

We mustn't complain too much of being comedians - it's an honorable profession. If only we could be good ones the world might gain at least a sense of style. We have failed - that's all. We are bad comedians, we aren't bad men.

If I had to choose between life in the Soviet Union and life in the U. S. A. , I would certainly choose the Soviet Union.

I can never think of you as a friend. You can do without a friend.