Confronted with the impossibility of remaining faithful to one's beliefs, and the equal impossibility of becoming free of them, one can be driven to the most inhuman excesses.

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.

Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began. The recovery of this standard demands of everyone who loves this country a hard look at himself, for the greatest achievements must begin somewhere, and they always begin with the person.

It seems to be typical of life in America ... that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.

But it was not the room’s disorder which was frightening; it was the fact that when one began searching for the key to this disorder, one realized that it was not to be found in any of the usual places. For this was not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief.

The place in which I'll fit will not exist until I make it.