You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.

There are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

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

The interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.

A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.

The past is what makes the present coherent, and the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly.