Democracy, to maintain itself, must repeatedly conquer every cell and corner of the nation. How many of our public institutions and private businesses, our schools, hospitals, and domestic hearths are in reality little fascist states where freedom of speech is more rigorously excluded than vermin?

The educated man had throughout the ages found a way to covert passionate activity into silent and motionless pleasure. He can sit still in a room and not perish.

We cannot appreciate the art of any age without first acquiring an equivalent of the experience it depicts.

The history of creation is but a succession of battles between amateurs of genius-inspired heretics- and orthodox professionals.

To watch a football game is to be in a prolonged neurotic doubt as to what you're seeing. It's more like an emergency happening at a distance than a game. I don't wonder the spectators take to drink.

Writing, at least a craft and at its best an art, aspiring to the unique, is the most difficult to learn.

Americans began by loving youth, and now, out of adult self-pity, they worship it.