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.

Fame is a powerful aphrodisiac.

Nobody here could ever talk about a heaven on earth. Heaven remained rigidly in its proper place on the other side of death, and on this side flourished the injustices, the cruelties, the meanness that elsewhere people so cleverly hushed up. Here you could love human beings nearly as God loved them, knowing the worst: you didn't love a pose, a pretty dress, a sentiment artfully assumed.

I could never have been a pacifist. To kill a man was surely to grant him an immeasurable benefit. Oh yes, people always, everywhere, loved their enemies. It was their friends they preserved for pain and vacuity.

What have we all got to expect that we allow ourselves to be so lined with disappointment?

Suffering is not increased by numbers; one body can contain all the suffering the world can feel.

A man kept his character even when he was insane.