(T)here was a story they used to tell at home about a girl whose punishment was that every time she opened her mouth, snakes and toads came out, snakes and toads with every word. The book didn't say what she did about it, but I've always assumed she probably ended up keeping her mouth shut.

All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.

Every reasonable human being should be a moderate Socialist.

Yes, they are carnal, both of them, love and death, and therein lies their terror and their great magic!

Everything is politics.

…What our age needs, what it demands, what it will create for itself, is—terror.

Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily - no hourly - and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim.