He hated all this, and somehow he couldn't get away.

Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing.

The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition-and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain.

Nowhere else than upon the sea do the days, weeks, and months fall away quicker into the past. They seem to be left astern as easily as the light air-bubbles in the swirls of the ship's wake.

You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.