We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had one, at least since Washington, whose fundamental character was solider and more admirable.

I am, in fact, the complete anti-Messiah, and detest converts almost as much as I detest missionaries. My writings, such as they are, have had only one purpose: to attain for H. L. Mencken that feeling of tension relieved and function achieved which a cow enjoys on giving milk.

The theatre, when all is said and done, is not life in miniature, but life enormously magnified, life hideously exaggerated.

I am one of the few goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other goyims. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish.

Puccini - silver macaroni, exquisitely tangled.

The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.

Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed. What really teaches a man is not experience, but observation.