Novelists who treat violence and cruelty as something to be exploited for their effect, or to enjoy the pleasure of an evacuation, are carriers of a singularly unpleasant disease.

Perhaps this is in the end what most marriages are - gentleness, memory, and habit.

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.

Novelists who treat violence and cruelty as something to be exploited for their effect, or to enjoy the pleasure of an evacuation, are carriers of a singularly unpleasant disease.

A joke is a joke or the image of a truth.

Mere human beings cant afford to be fanatical about anything. Not even about justice or loyalty. The fanatic for justice ends by murdering a million helpless people to clear a space for his law-courts. If we are to survive on this planet, there must be compromises.

The past is able to close round certain moments, as if they were seeds, and deliver them again fresh and living in the present.