Personal humiliation was painful. Humiliation of one's family was much worse. Humiliation of one's social status was agony to bear. But humiliation of one's nation was the most excruciating of human miseries.

As he thought of it, though, he could not imagine what “just living” might actually be. He had never done it in his life. But he wanted to do it anyway.

Short stories are designed to deliver their impact in as few pages as possible. A tremendous amount is left out, and a good short story writer learns to include only the most essential information.

And then he thought: Is this how idiots rationalize their stupidity to themselves?

I am especially grateful, however, to have known the fifties, before we began to poison our own civilization - or at least before the effects of the poison began to be felt.

Civilisation is only a pretense. In crisis we have become mere apes again, forgetting the rational biped of our pretensions and instead becoming the hairy primate at the mouth of the cave, screeching at the enemy wishing it would go away, fingering the heavy stone we will use the moment it comes close enough

Death is not a tragedy to the one who dies; to have wasted the life before that death, that is the tragedy.