Popular culture is seductive; high culture is imperious.
Pornography does not inspire violence, but you can break a leg trying to imitate it.
If you have no power, talk about your influence. If you have power, talk about the constraints that hem you in.
Asceticism without religion is just another way of cultivating peculiar sensations.
Intelligence without power cannibalizes itself.
The Ancient Mariner seizes the guest at the wedding feast and will not let go until he has told all his story: the prototype of the bore.