But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.

There will always be survivors.

Obscurity is the refuge of incompetence.

Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries - but it is a force stronger than crime.

I'll give you an exact definition. When the happiness of another person becomes as essential to yourself as your own, then the state of love exists.

Art is the process of evoking pity and terror, which is not abstract at all but very human. What the self-styled modern artists are doing is a sort of unemotional pseudointellectual masturbation . . . whereas creative art is more like intercourse, in which the artist must seduce -- render emotional -- his audience, each time.

Who is more real? Homer or Ulysses? Shakespeare or Hamlet? Burroughs or Tarzan?