I'm perfectly happy about being superstitious and atheistic.

We shouldn't live as if [other worlds] mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.

No one has the right to live without being shocked.

That's the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

There is another consequence of any belief in a single god, and that is that it is a very good excuse for people to behave very badly.

What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism

Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, and clever.