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

Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained

People say that the Bible is a boring book...but they don't say that about Shakespeare, because the people who teach Shakespeare are zealous for Shakespeare.

I wouldn't have said that Anthony Eden was equipped by nature to deal with the situation in the world today. I would have said that he was portentous, sincere, honest and rather stupid.

If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner.

It's a sad thing about politics that most people get power too late, in that they differ from ladies of easy virtue who get their pleasures too early.

The Sputnik is just to me like a firework, a rocket, a new invention.