The world of shabby gentility is like no other; its sacrifices have less logic, its standards are harsher, its relation to reality is dimmer than comfortable property or plain poverty can understand.

To be a gentleman is to be oneself, all of a seam, on camera and off.

Every social war is a battle between the very few on both sides who care and who fire their shots across a crowd of spectators.

The Communists offer one precious, fatal boon: they take away the sense of sin.

No great scoundrel is ever uninteresting.

Any experience deeply felt makes some men better and some men worse. When it has ended, they share nothing but the recollection of a commitment in which each was tested and to some degree found wanting. [...] The consequences of the journey change the voyager so much more than the embarking or the arrival.

As an organized political group, the Communists have done nothing to damage our society a fraction as much as what their enemies have done in the name of defending us against subversion.