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

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.

The suspense in a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist himself, who is intensely curious too about what will happen to the hero.

For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent, God to his Lucifer.

The consumer today is the victim of the manufacturer who launches on him a regiment of products for which he must make room in his soul.

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?

Like Michelangelo and Cellini, Florentines of every station are absorbed in acquiring real estate: a little apartment that can be rented to foreigners; a farm that will supply the owner with oil, wine, fruit, and flowers for the house.