A minor symptom of wars is the cancerous growth of committees.

There is only one world; the world pressing against you at this minute. There is only one minute in which you are alive; this minute here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle.

Sadistic literature is not only inhumane. It is anti-human.

A politician is forced to make a habit of noble phrases and optimistic lies. In the end they infect himself.

Hope is a talent like any other.

If the novel is dying, I see no chance that dismembering it will revive it.

Only one person in a thousand knows the trick of really living in the present. Most of us spend fifty-nine minutes an hour living in the past, with regret for lost joys or shame for things badly done (both utterly useless and weakening) or in a future which we either long for or dread. . . . There is only one minute in which you are alive, this minute, here and now. The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle. Which is exactly what it is-a miracle and unrepeatable.