The Earthlings behaved at all times as though there were a big eye in the sky—as though that big eye were ravenous for entertainment.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue, the monograph went on. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact how hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves.

The heartbreaking necessity of lying about reality and the heartbreaking impossibilty of lying about it

There is no reason why good cannot triumph as often as evil. The triumph of anything is a matter of organization. If there are such things as angels, I hope that they are organized along the lines of the Mafia.

You can't teach people to write well. Writing well is something God lets you do or declines to let you do.

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

...when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.