 Any writer, I suppose, feels that the world into which he was born is nothing less than a conspiracy against the cultivation of his talent. |
| The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. |
| There is a "sanctity" involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it. |
| The question of sexual dominance can exist only in the nightmare of that soul which has armed itself, totally, against the possibility of the changing motion of conquest and surrender, which is love. |
| The future is like heaven, everyone exalts it, but no one wants to go there now. |
| The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever. |
| I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. |
| Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned. |
| People can cry much easier than they can change. |
| The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose. |
| When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking. |
| Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law. |
| I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. |
| If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons. |
| The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others. |
| A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled. |
| No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time. |
| Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings. |
| It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive. |
| It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind. |
