People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.

People can't, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents. Life gives these and also takes them away and the great difficulty is to say Yes to life.

I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become, and they pay for it, very simply, by the lives they lead.

There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior.

A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.

All racists are irresponsible.