In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.

Detective stories have nothing to do with works of art.

It's better to say, 'I'm suffering,' than to say, 'This landscape is ugly.

To hunt for symbols in a fairy tale is absolutely fatal.

The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realised they can't get away with it.

When someone between twenty and forty says, apropos of a work of art, 'I know what I like,' he is really saying 'I have no taste of my own but accept the taste of my cultural milieu.

Political history is far too criminal to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villians from fiction.