most of our social and educational institutions are designed to weed out or make over people ... until we produce a world where everyone is a smart, quick-witted, aggressive person living on the surface of the mind without ever looking into the depths.

the unconscious forces that govern accessible memory are the most arbitrary of editors and the absolute masters of our lives.

what you fear, you invite.

A critic is a person who rationalizes his likes and dislikes in such impressive language that the layman thinks he is reasoning instead of rationalizing.

Civilization is a fiction which becomes a fact only as long as everyone can believe in it. It is the cynic, rather than the rebel, who pulls down the whole flimsy structure periodically throughout history.

fiction and lies are both works of creative art, and creation always reveals the creator.

Other people's children, like other people's love affairs, were so much less interesting than one's own.