America has always been a country of amateurs where the professional, that is to say, the man who claims authority as a member of an élite which knows the law in some field or other, is an object of distrust and resentment.

Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest.

All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation.

No being can make another one happy.

Oh, how I wish that Orwell were still alive, so that I could read his comments on contemporary events!

Human beings are, necessarily, actors who...can be divided...into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.

Men will pay large sums to whores for telling them they are not bores.