Modern neurosis began with the discoveries of Copernicus. Science made men feel small by showing him that the earth was not the center of the universe.

I shall never send for a priest or recite an Act of Contrition in my last moments. I do not mind if I lose my soul for all eternity. If the kind of God exists Who would damn me for not working out a deal with Him, then that is unfortunate. I should not care to spend eternity in the company of such a person.

... 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.

The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has all too much a professional air.

... the average Catholic perceives no connection between religion and morality, unless it is a question of someone else's morality.

I am for the ones who represent sense, and so was Jane Austen.

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