Other people cannot see what I see whenever I look into your father's face, for behind your father's face as it is today are all those other faces which were his.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.

If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.

Whoever debases others is debasing himself.

Whose little boy are you?

...all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me...

A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

I know that people can be better than they are. We are capable of bearing a great burden, once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is.

Anyway, I have long had a very definite tendency to tune out the moment I come anywhere near either a pulpit or a soapbox.

A scientist shouldn't be asked to judge the economic and moral value of his work. All we should ask the scientist to do is find the truth and then not keep it from anyone.

In the V-shaped opening of her crape bodice Mlle. Vinteuil felt the sting of her friend's sudden kiss

I'm a little lavish I must admit. But I'm not really concerned with money. Being rich is not my goal, being wealthy is.

Some call it bootlegging. Some call it racketeering. I call it a business.

You're always defined in relation to the environment that you're in and to the people that you're around.

I'm coming from journalism, but at the same time I'm tempted by poetry, politics, and maybe the idea of being a witness, a belief that you can still change things with the image.

I had always wondered what Reverend Lovoy meant when he talked about "grace." I understood it now. It was being able to give up something that it broke your heart to lose, and be happy about it.

Religion [is] the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity

Half of tradition is a lie.

Race is the least reliable information you can have about someone. It's real information, but it tells you next to nothing.