In my firm, we dealt in lies. Advertising is that ... the skilful use of the truth to mislead, to spoil, to debase.

For what I have received may the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received.

When you talk of revolution ... you never talk of the day after.

Language is one of the thin walls humanity has built up over centuries against its own bestial and destructive impulses.

Surprise will be my last emotion, not fear.

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?

Writers sometimes talk as though they were the only friends of civilization. This is their conceit. But they have special powers to serve -- or to corrupt -- civilization, and are obliged to use them.