... law is a substitute for love.

the fool is the one true cosmopolite - the one character common to all nationalities.

Wouldn't it be kinder to say that a lie is a short work of fiction? 'A story' as my daughter says?

In a city you thought of all life as human life. You had to live in the heart of the woods to realize that humanity was a slight ripple on the surface of a flood of life that seeped into every vacant crack, flowed into every biological vacuum the moment it occurred.

That's the one thing a politician mustn't have - political opinions or principles. He can have prejudices - indeed he must have prejudices and share all the popular political superstitions of the moment as ardently as he can. But he must not have principles. He must never let the people suspect that they cannot eat their cake and have it. He must promise them a defense program and a higher standard of living. He must never use that dreadful little word or.

Nobody believes in ghosts, but everybody is afraid of them.

Falling in love is like religious conversion. It goes on for a long time below the threshold before it reaches consciousness.