money is an acquired taste that grows as it is fed.

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

Habit is far stronger than the lessons of experience.

Privacy is like sleep - something you don't appreciate until you have to go without it.

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.

Even a small, everyday lie is a clue to the personality and preoccupations of the liar, like a dream or any other confection of the mind, that is half-conscious and half-unconscious, as all creative acts must be.

Diamonds are the tears of the poor.