“A good soldier has his heart and soul in it. When he receives an order, he gets a hard on, and when he drives his lance through his enemy’s guts, he comes.”

Everyone needs help from everyone.

Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.

Come in, dear wind, and be our guest You too have neither home nor rest.

Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods.

Who fights may lose, but who does not fight has lost already.

A man who strains himself on the stage is bound, if he is any good, to strain all the people sitting in the stalls.

On thinking about Hell, I gather My brother Shelley found it was a place Much like the city of London.

Then I will tell you something. I do not believe in it. Forty years among men has consistently taught me that they are not amenable to commonsense.

He who fights, can lose. He who doesn’t fight, has already lost.

People are too durable, that’s their main trouble. They can do too much to themselves, they last too long.

Fearful is the seductive power of goodness.

Some party hack decreed that the people had lost the government’s confidence and could only regain it with redoubled effort. If that is the case, would it not be simpler, If the government simply dissolved the people And elected another?

Mixing one’s wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?

Unfortunate the country that needs heroes!

All the gang of those who rule us Hope our quarrels never stop Helping them to split and fool us So they can remain on top.

I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin’s orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.

That was interesting.” “He deliberately countermanded one of my orders.” “He was furtive.” “Sneaky, even.” “We’ll make a Rebellion-style pilot of him yet.” Tycho & Wedge (about Jag)

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

What is laid down, ordered, factual is never enough to embrace the whole truth: life always spills over the rim of every cup.

The media no longer hesitate to whip up lurid anxieties in order to increase sales, in the process undermining social confidence and multiplying fears.

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.

Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.

The gas-cylinders had by this time been put into position on the front line. A special order came round imposing severe penalties on anyone who used any word but “accessory” in speaking of the gas. This was to keep it secret, but the French civilians knew all about the scheme long before this.