'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word.
It's not that [writers] are pompous jerks. We are insecure. We feel like we're fading away in this vast sea of scriveners.
No sight better expresses the politics of aid, the dynamics of the West and the developing countries, than the image of children, happy or in need.
When evil enters the world, do you think it comes with horns and cloven feet, billowing some foul stench?
Is that not the Promethean fable, that the fire stolen from the gods will light men their way even while it burns their hands?
Everything new is on the rim of our view, in the darkness, below the horizon, so that nothing new is visible but in the light of what we know.
It is no consolation to reflect that every cause itself is an effect, making the search for causes and reasons a fool’s errand.
'Matterhorn' is my metaphor of the Vietnam War - we built it, we abandoned it, we assaulted it, we lost, and then we abandoned it again.
Not a single illegal immigrant should or need enter the United States, not one. Contrary to the common wisdom, the borders are easy to seal, and controlling entry is hardly totalitarian.
One reason the human race has such a low opinion of itself is that it gets so much of its wisdom from writers.
I peeked in the bag. Do you know what was in there? I'll tell you what was in there: a collapsible tray table. Is there any sadder purchase in this fucking world? Maybe a CD of C+C Music Factory's Greatest Hits, but that's about it.
Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is.
Saying of the Prophet Monkishness No monkery in Islam.
Courage is the antidote to danger.
Sometimes survival is the worst alternative there is
The free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
In proportion therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases.
But Blake's voices returned to dictate revisions.
It is the goldsmith who can assay the gold.
Everything is false, everything is possible, everything is doubtful.
The ages live in history through their anachronisms.
