How subservient to Jesus, or to a humane God Almighty, were the leaders of this country back in the 1840's, when Marx said such a supposedly evil thing about religion? They had made it perfectly legal to own human slaves, and weren't going to led women vote or hold public office, God forbid, for another eighty year.

Generally speaking, espionage offers each spy an opportunity to go crazy in a way he finds irresistible.

You develop a style from writing a lot.

That was what made them so hilarious and unafraid. That was the strength of the Nazis. [...] They understood God better than anyone. They knew how to make Him stay away.

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

There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.

This is a nation tragedy, of course - that we've changed from a society to an audience.