Some of my cronies call me a pessimist and a decadent, but there is always a background of faith behind resignation.

The sexual organs are the most sensitive organs of the human being. They are not diplomats. They tell the truth.

Some of my cronies call me a pessimist and a decadent, but there is always a background of faith behind resignation.

No matter how much you know a human being, you don't know him enough.

The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of the spirit in the full sense of the word, not just a preacher of social or political ideals. There is no paradise for bored readers and no excuse for tedious literature that does not intrigue the reader, uplift him, give him the joy and the escape that true art always grants.

The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala.

To be a vegetarian is to disagree - to disagree with the course of things today... starvation, cruelty - we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it's a strong one.