The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

The Lord's Prayer is 66 words, the Gettysburg Address is 286 words, there are 1.322 words in the Declaration of Independence, but government regulations on the sale of cabbage total 26.911 words. The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

The ability of the theist to misunderstand a thing is directly proportional to the obviousness of the thing.

The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Any place you love is the world to you”, explained the pensive Catherine Wheel, who had been attached to an old deal box in early life, and prided herself on her broken heart; “but love is not fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much about that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent. I remember myself once- But it is no matter now. Romance is a thing of the past.

That is the mission of art - to make us pause and look at a thing a second time.

Better the rule of One, whom all obey, than to let clamorous demagogues betray our freedom with the kiss of anarchy.