From what I have seen, I am driven to the conclusion that religion is only good for good people.

In politics, it seems, retreat is honorable if dictated by military considerations and shameful if even suggested for ethical reasons.

For me, in fact, the mark of the historic is the nonchalance with which it picks up an individual and deposits him in a trend, like a house playfully moved by a tornado.

... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.

For both writer and reader, the novel is a lonely, physically inactive affair. Only the imagination races.

The erotic element always present in fashion, the kiss of loving labor on the body, is now overtly expressed by language. Belts hug or clasp; necklines plunge; jerseys bind. The word exciting tingles everywhere.

The strongest argument for the un-materialistic character of American life is that we tolerate conditions that are, from a materialistic point of view, intolerable.