Each wrong act brings with it its own anesthetic, dulling the conscience and blinding it against further light, and sometimes for years.

The superior thing ... was to be late. Lateness showed that serene contempt for the illusion we call time which is so necessary to ensure the respect of others and oneself. Only the servile are punctual.

One never feels such distaste for one's countrymen and countrywomen as when one meets them abroad.

miss my daily Mass, and have a superstitious feeling that anything may happen on the days I don't go. However, nothing in particular has.

Work is a dull thing; you cannot get away from that. The only agreeable existence is one of idleness, and that is not, unfortunately, always compatible with continuing to exist at all.

Cruelty was the devil, and most people were, in one way or another, cruel. Tyranny, suppression, persecution, torture, slavery, war, neglect - all were cruel. The world was acid and sour with hate, fat with greed, yellow with the triumph of the strong and the rich.

News is like food: it is the cooking and serving that makes it acceptable, not the material itself.