My grandfather used to say, "Learn to like art, music and literature deeply and passionately. They will be your friends when things are bad". It is true: at this time of year, when days are short and dark, and one hardly dares to open the newspapers, I turn, not vainly either, to the great creators of the past for distraction, solace and help.

The word 'meaningful' when used today is nearly always meaningless.

Hell is being trapped in a night-club with the'beautiful people'and forced to live in a'luxury penthouse flat'.

There are no inevitabilities in history

The writer learns to write, in the last resort, only by writing. He must get words onto paper even if he is dissatisfied with them.

Marxism, Freudianism, global warming. These are proof - of which history offers so many examples - that people can be suckers on a grand scale. To their fanatical followers they are a substitute for religion. Global warming, in particular, is a creed, a faith, a dogma that has little to do with science.

You know you're an Arizona native when you have to look up "mass transit" in the dictionary.