There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction, but I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation.

Sometimes you say things with a smile with the precise intention of making it clear that you are not being serious, and are only kidding. If I salute a friend with a smile and say, "How are you, you old scoundrel!" clearly I don't really mean he's a scoundrel.

American coffee can be a pale solution served at a temperature of 100 degrees centigrade in plastic thermos cups, usually obligatory in railroad stations for purposes of genocide, whereas coffee made with an American percolator, such as you find in private houses or in humble luncheonettes, served with eggs and bacon, is delicious, fragrant, goes down like pure spring water, and afterwards causes severe palpitations, because one cup contains more caffeine than four espressos.

That is a real attitude - to see everything as being meaningful, even the less important things, to prove something, even the greater problems of life.

Books are menaced by books. Any excess of information produces silence.

The poets did not win; the philosophers surrendered.

The only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane passion for the truth.