Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all.

He may be a very nice man. But I haven't got the time to figure that out. All I know is, he's got a uniform and a gun and I have to relate to him that way. That's the only way to relate to him because one of us may have to die.

I can't believe what you say, because I see what you do.

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.

The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all.

History is not a procession of illustrious people. It's about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.