The horror of the Twentieth Century was the size of each new event, and the paucity of its reverberation.

I don't trust a man who uses the word evil eighteen times in ten minutes. If you're half evil, nothing soothes you more than to think the person you are opposed to is totally evil.

The true religion of America has always been America.

A nation fights well in proportion to the amount of men and materials it has. And the other equation is that the individual soldier in that army is a more effective soldier the poorer his standard of living has been in the past.

At bottom, I mean profoundly at bottom, the FBI has nothing to do with Communism, it has nothing to do with catching criminals, it has nothing to do with the Mafia, the syndicate, it has nothing to do with trust-busting, it has nothing to do with interstate commerce, it has nothing to do with anything but serving as a church for the mediocre. A high church for the true mediocre.

Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day.

Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.