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

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.

Drinking makes uninteresting people matter less and late at night, matter not at all.

The past, with its pleasures, its rewards, its foolishness, its punishments, is there for each of us forever, and it should be.

Lonely. I always thought loneliness meant alone, without people. It means something else.

I am suspicious of guilt in myself and in other people; it is usually a way of not thinking, or of announcing one's own fine sensibilities the better to be rid of them fast.

It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.