The most terrible thing about materialism, even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offer a prospect of deliverance.

There's a large strain of irony in our human affairs... Interwoven with our affairs is this wonderful spirit of irony which prevents us from ever being utterly and irretrievably serious, from being unaware of the mysterious nature of our existence.

A decrepit society shuns humor as a decrepit individual shuns drafts.

In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, licking the earth.

The great advantage of the sort of education I had was precisely that it made practically no mark upon those subjected to it.

Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time.

Tranquilizers to overcome angst, pep pills to wake us up, life pills to ensure blissful sterility. I will lift up my ears unto the pills whence cometh my help.