Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty.

If one defends the bourgeois, philistine virtues, one does not defend them merely from the demonism or bohemianism of the artist but from the present bourgeoisie itself.

Ideology is not the product of thought; it is the habit or the ritual of showing respect for certain formulas to which, for various reasons having to do with emotional safety, we have very strong ties of whose meaning and consequences in actuality we have no clear understanding.

Where misunderstanding serves others as an advantage, one is helpless to make oneself understood.

Every neurosis is a primitive form of legal proceeding in which the accused carries on the prosecution, imposes judgment and executes the sentence: all to the end that someone else should not perform the same process.

Being a Jew is like walking in the wind or swimming: you are touched at all points and conscious everywhere.

Immature artists imitate. Mature artists steal.