All power corrupts but some must govern.

Each my book feels like my last book. And then I think, like a dedicated alcoholic, that one more won't do me any harm.

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat.

Tyranny is like the electric wiring in an old house. A tyrant dies, the new tyrant takes possession, and all he has to do is drop the switch.

I think that where I've watched a movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.

Without a pen in my hand I can't think.

It struck him as a bit unfair that, at the age of eight, he should have manifested the same sense of solitude that haunted him at forty-three.