The worst of it is that I am perpetually being punished for nothing; this governor loves to punish, and he punishes by taking my books away from me. It's perfectly awful to let the mind grind itself away between the upper and nether millstones of regret and remorse without respite; with books my life would be livable -- any life.

People seldom tell the truths that are worth telling. We ought to choose our truths as carefully as we choose our lies and to select our virtues with as much thought as we bestow upon the selection of our enemies.

One should always be a little improbable.

His style is chaos illumined by flashes of lightning. As a writer he has mastered everything except language.

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.

Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's face. It cannot be concealed.

Thinking is the most unhealthy thing in the world, and people die of it just as they die of any other disease. Fortunately, in England at any rate, thought is not catching.