To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given.

You cannot but learn more of the world's heft, as you take it now into your hands.

...hate suits him better than forgiveness. Immersed in hate, he doesn't have to do anything; he can be paralyzed, and the rigidty of hatred makes a kind of shelter for him.

Let us not mock God with metaphor, Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence; Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the Faded credulity of earlier ages: Let us walk through the door.

A few places are especially conducive to inspiration - automobiles, church - public places. I plotted Couples almost entirely in church - little shivers and urgencies I would note down on the program, and carry down to the office Monday.

The guarantee that our self enjoys an intended relation to the outer world is most, if not all, we ask from religion. God is the self projected onto reality by our natural and necessary optimism. He is the not-me personified.

The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires.