The relation between life and literature - a final antimony - is one of mutual plagiarism.

It is impossible, except for theologians, to conceive of a world-wide scandal or a universe-wide scandal; the proof of this is the way people have settled down to living with nuclear fission, radiation poisoning, hydrogen bombs, satellites, and space rockets.

In moments of despair, we look on ourselves lead-enly as objects; we see ourselves, our lives, as someone else might see them and may even be driven to kill ourselves if the separation, the "knowledge," seems sufficiently final.

Old money is fully as moronic as new money but it has inherited an appearance of cultivation.

Anybody who has ever tried to rectify an injustice or set a record straight comes to feel that he is going mad.

The furniture and trappings in the apartment are all in a state of flux - here today, gone tomorrow. Nothing is anchored to its place, not even the coffee-pot, which floats off and returns, on the tide of the signora's marine nature.

Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted.