When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

When human rights are abused on a grand scale, the broth of purity boils and feeds the rebellion of a new order.

It is astonishing the lengths to which a person, or a people, will go in order to avoid a truthful mirror.

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.

I don't know, now, when I first looked at Hella and found her stale, found her body uninteresting, her presence grating. It seemed to happen all at once—I suppose that only means that it had been happening for a long time.

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

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