One of the uncovenanted benefits of living for a long time is that, having so many more dead than living friends, death can appear as a step backwards into the joyous past.

A nation has honor precisely as it has fleas - on this or that body. The statesman who talks of honor - unless he means something else, quite different - is a rogue.

to grow old is to have taken away, one by one, all gifts of life, the food and wine, the music and the company. ... the gods unloose, one by one, the mortal fingers that cling to the edge of the table.

What I do not know and cannot even hope to understand before I die is why human beings are willfully, coldly, matter-of-factly cruel to each other ... What nerve has atrophied in the torturer, or worse is sensually moved?

Think of all the really successful men and women you know. Do you know a single one who didn't learn very young the trick of calling attention to himself in the right quarters?

There is only one world the world pressing against you this minute.

She did not so much cook as assassinate food.