I've been living alone for so long, everything about me’s private. I’m surprised anyone’s able to understand a word I say.

Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace and order, and be eaten alive.

Having a yacht is a reason for being more cheerful than most.

I saw the destruction of Dresden. I saw the city before and then came out of an air-raid shelter and saw it afterward, and certainly one response was laughter. God knows, that's the soul seeking some relief.

Homo Americanus is going to go on speaking and writing the way he always has, no matter what dictionary he owns.

A joke is like building a mousetrap from scratch. You have to work pretty hard to make the thing snap when it is supposed to snap.

There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, I said, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too.