Today's competitiveness, so much imposed from without, is exhausting, not exhilarating; is unending-a part of one's social life, one's solitude, one's sleep, one's sleeplessness.

One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame, we have killed off so much real shame as well.

The moving van is a symbol of more than our restlessness, it is the most conclusive evidence possible of our progress.

It is the gossip columnist's business to write about what is none of his business.

If it is the great delusion of moralists to suppose that all previous ages were less sinful than their own, then it is the great delusion of intellectuals to suppose that all previous ages were less sick.

In the history of mankind, fanaticism has caused more harm than vice.

A perfect conversation would run much less to brilliant sentences than to unfinished ones.