Intellectuals can tell themselves anything, sell themselves any bill of goods, which is why they were so often patsies for the ruling classes in 19th-century France and England, or 20th-century Russia and America.

A theme is always necessary, a plain, simple, unadorned theme to confuse the ignorant.

I wanted to see what was there for me once, what is there for me now.

You are what you are. It is my opinion that trouble in the world comes from people who do not know what they are, and pretend to be something they're not.

Advances are made by those with at least a touch of irrational confidence in what they can do.

What a word is truth. Slippery, tricky, unreliable. I tried in these books to tell the truth.

For every man who lives without freedom, the rest of us must face the guilt.