People are subject to moods, to temptations and fears, lethargy and aberration and ignorance, and the staunchest qualities shift under the stresses and strains of daily life.

I always felt that the boiled potato, not the tudor rose, should be the national emblem.

Keeping your coat on indoors in Russia, no matter how public the place, is far worse than keeping your hat on as the flag goes by. It is worse than going into a Catholic church in Spain with your upper arms bare. It is worse than telling a mother her baby bores you.

It occurred to me that we live in a lunatic world where the only way to maintain peace is to have an enormous war-making machine.

To me travel is triple delight: anticipation, performance, and recollection.

everything you experience is what constitutes you as a human being, but the experience passes away and the person's left. The person is the residue.

Some objects and events may be photographed, others, if one is to render their true quality, should be painted or set to music, since their essence is more faithfully reproduced through imagination than by the journalistic report.