“I have always felt like an artist when I work on a book. I see no reason why the word should always be confined to writers of fiction and poetry.”

The clergy [in the 14th century] on the whole were probably no more lecherous or greedy or untrustworthy than other men, but because they were supposed to be better or nearer to God than other men, their failings attracted more attention.

An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one’s own prose.

One must stop conducting research before one has finished. Otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.

Christianity in its ideas was never the art of the possible.

The better part of valor is to spend it learning to live with differences, however hostile, unless and until we can find another planet.

Business offers a kind of power, but only to the very successful at the top, and without the dominion and titles and red carpets and motorcycle escorts of public office.

Voluntary self-directed religion was more dangerous to the Church than any number of infidels.

When truth and reason cannot be heard, then must presumption rule.

Diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interim period, appeasement of Fascism.

Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled.

Rome had Caesar, a man of remarkable governing talents, although it must be said that a ruler who arouses opponents to resort to assassination is probably not as smart as he ought to be.

in the midst of war and crisis nothing is as clear or as certain as it appears in hindsight

Human behavior is timeless.

The writer’s object is – or should be – to hold the reader’s attention.

Governments do not like to face radical remedies; it is easier to let politics predominate.

While husbands and lovers in the stories are of all kinds, ranging from sympathetic to disgusting, women are invariably deceivers: inconstant, unscrupulous, quarrelsome, querulous, lecherous, shameless, although not necessarily all of these at once.