Creativity doesn't flourish in an atmosphere of despotism, coercion and fear.

A picnic may well be a metaphor for life. The essentials for happiness are the right company, moderate if sanguine expectations and a reasonable standard of physical sustenance and comfort, the whole being bedeviled by the belief that there is always something better to be had if only one presses on.

Man is diminished if he lives without knowledge of his past; without hope of a future he becomes a beast.

You never forget the people who were kind to you in childhood, do you, sir?

Murder is the unique crime, the only one for which we can never make reparation to the victim.

People were excited by violence. What, after all, was the sexual act but a voluntarily endured assault, a momentary death?

gossip ... was like any other commodity in the marketplace. You received it only if you had something of value to give.