Economists are like Aeolian harps, and the sounds that issue from them are determined by the winds that blow.

It would be no loss to the world if most of the writers now writing had been strangled at birth.

A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.

[On Jane Austen:] To believe her limited in range because she was harmonious in method is as sensible as to imagine that when the Atlantic Ocean is as smooth as a mill-pond it shrinks to the size of a mill-pond.

You must always believe that life is as extraordinary as music says it is.

I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

I don't believe that to understand is necessarily to pardon, but I feel that to understand makes one forget that one cannot pardon.