All middle-class novels are about the trials of three, all upper-class novels about mass fornication, all revolutionary novels about a bad man turned good by a tractor.

No rich man is a patriot, no rich man is a friend. They have all only got one fatherland the Ritz-Carlton; and one friend the mistress they're promising to divorce their wives for.

If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves, there wouldn't be enough to go around.

A self-made man is one who believes in luck and sends his son to Oxford.

The waste, the insane freaks of these money men, the cynicism and egotism of their life... I'll show that they are not brilliant, not romantic, not delightful, not intelligent.

Venus can see at night without eyes.

Creation of something out of nothing is the most primitive of human passions and the most optimistic

When people are collecting gold they aren't doing business. ... Gold is constipation: even bankruptcy is more fluid. Gold isn't wealth: positions in markets are wealth.

About myself - no. I'm unimportant, an observer, a wandering animal.

Charm is a cunning self-forgetfulness.

Gentlemen are overestimated, that is my experience.

Synchronicity - the sense of significance beyond chance

If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt, it is mine alone.

Looking at fires when high, by the way, especially through one of those prism kaleidoscopes which image their surroundings, is an extraordinarily moving and beautiful experience.

As nuclear and other technological achievements continue to mount, the normal life span will continue to climb. The hourly productivity of the worker will increase.

I think I'll work all my life. When you're having fun, why stop having fun?

What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.

I don't want to write the thing that I am a consumer of when I'm unconscious. I want to write the thing that makes me contend with the thing that I've been consuming unconsciously.

One cannot inherit a talent for the violin - there are no violins in nature. Instead, one must be motivated, able to benefit from practice, and persevering.

The dreadful burden of having nothing to do.

The Irish question is this: Do the Irish know the answer to everything? ... And the answer to that is that we know fifteen different answers to every question. All of them right.