“Enclosing every thin man, there’s a fat man demanding elbow-room.”

We possess nothing certainly except the past.

I put the words down and push them a bit.

It is easy, retrospectively, to endow one’s youth with a false precocity or a false innocence; to tamper with the dates marking one’s stature on the edge of the door.

If politicians and scientists were lazier, how much happier we should all be.

Aesthetic value is often the by-product of the artist striving to do something else.

One forgets words as one forgets names. One’s vocabulary needs constant fertilizing or it will die.

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

If a thing’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing well.

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

O God, if there is a God, forgive him his sins, if there is such a thing as sin.

You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.

A work of art is not a matter of thinking beautiful thoughts or experiencing tender emotions , but of intelligence, skill, taste, proportion, knowledge, discipline and industry; especially discipline.

There is something incomparably thrilling in first opening a brand new book.

Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity.

Don’t hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them.

To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.

I’ll put an end to the idea that a woman’s body belongs to her. Nazi ideals demand that the practice of abortion shall be exterminated with a strong hand.

People who demand a long life are actually the ones who suffer life. Blessed are those people who live their whole life in a blink of an eye.

Doctors cut, burn, and torture the sick, and then demand of them an undeserved fee for such services.

A love that demands love will burn the very essence of what once made it pure.

Be realistic, demand the impossible!

A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires

Always demanding the best of oneself, living with honor, devoting one’s talents and gifts to the benefits of others – these are the measures of success that endure when material things have passed away.

What America demands in her black champions is a brilliant, powerful body and a dull, bestial mind.