10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.

Life is not significant details, illuminated by a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are.

Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world.

Enemies are somewhere else, as the fighting is almost always “over there,” with Islamic fundamentalism now replacing Russian and Chinese communism as the implacable, furtive menace. And “terrorist” is a more flexible word than “communist.” It can unify a larger number of quite different struggles and interests. What this may mean is that the war will be endless---since there will always be some terrorism.

Tamed as it may be, sexuality remains one of the demonic forces in human consciousness - pushing us at intervals close to taboo and dangerous desires, which range from the impulse to commit sudden arbitrary violence upon another person to the voluptuous yearning for the extinction of one's consciousness, for death itself. Even on the level of simple physical sensation and mood, making love surely resembles having an epileptic fit at least as much as, if not more than, it does eating a meal or conversing with someone.

Growing older is mainly an ordeal of the imagination-a moral disease, a social pathology.

We are ruled by quotations.