Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it.

You tell me your favorite novelists and I'll tell you whom you vote for, or whether you vote at all.

The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person's name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.

To state a lie firmly, categorically and with great authority, undeterred by the fact that all concerned know it to be a lie, is one of the principal activities defined by the term practising law.

The war against Vietnam is only the ghastliest manifestation of what I'd call imperial provincialism, which afflicts America's whole culture-aware only of its own history, insensible to everything which isn't part of the local atmosphere.

Consistency is a virtue for trains: what we want from a philosopher is insights, whether he comes by them consistently or not.

As a rule, the most dangerous ideas are not the ones that divide people but those on which they agree.