Venice, as a city, was a foundling, floating upon the waters like Moses in his basket among the bulrushes.

The only form of action open to a child is to break something or strike someone, its mother or another child; it cannot cause things to happen in the world.

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

Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character.

It really takes a hero to live any kind of spiritual life without religious belief.

In verity we are the poor. This humanity we would claim for ourselves is the legacy, not only of the Enlightenment, but of the thousands and thousands of European peasants and poor townspeople who came here bringing their humanity and their sufferings with them. It is the absence of a stable upper class that is responsible for much of the vulgarity of the American scene. Should we blush before the visitor for this deficiency?

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.