it came to me, as we sat there, glumly ordering lunch, that for extremely stupid people anti-Semitism was a form of intellectuality, the sole form of intellectuality of which they were capable. It represented, in a rudimentary way, the ability to make categories, to generalize.

Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.

Anti-Semitism is a horrible disease from which nobody is immune, and it has a kind of evil fascination that makes an enlightened person draw near the source of infection, supposedly in a scientific spirit, but really to sniff the vapors and dally with the possibility.

I was going to get myself recognized at any price. If I could not win fame by goodness, I was ready to do it by badness.

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.

On the wall of our life together hung a gun waiting to be fired in the final act.

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