“Until very recently, the artist was a magician who did his magic in public view but kept himself and his effects a matter of mystery.”

By the time a man gets to be presidential material, he’s been bought ten times over.

Policemen are seldom tried for their crimes, or indeed, held responsible for what they do, which disturbs the peace and causes distress among the orderly.

I remember the Bond movies when I was a child. They were silent then.

As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city.

What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down of opinions as though they were facts, and the treating of facts as though they were opinions.

Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they’re scraping the top of the barrel.

Every country should have at least one King Farouk.

Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.

There’s a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.

It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author’s experience worked out literally.

I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it’s true that I am, by nature, belligerent.

The United States is a madhouse.

To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours, imitating kindly trees, as they watch for birds.

We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.

There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.

I can understand companionship.