Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.

What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?' 'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.

Plentitude, when too plentitudinous, was worst than destitution, for obviously what could one do, if there was nothing one could not?

Do not trust people. They are capable of greatness.

Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.

Good books tell the truth, even when they're about things that never have been and never will be. They're truthful in a different way

My pessimism (which, by the way, is far from absolute) originated with my despair in the lack of perfection to be found in human nature. I was attempting in my successive books to show the inevitable handicap of the human condition.