The time's gone by for sentiment and all that foolery. Mercy's all very well but after all it's justice that clinches the bargain.

Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.

It was a pity thoughts always ran the easiest way, like water in old ditches.

After all, what is every man? A horde of ghosts – like a Chinese nest of boxes – oaks that were acorns that were oaks. Death lies behind us, not in front – in our ancestors, back and back until...

Science, I am told, is making great strides, experimenting, groping after things which no sane man has ever dreamed of before – without being burned alive for it.

Fancies were all very well for a change, but must be only occasional guests in a world devoted to reality.

Yes, after all, this by now was his customary loneliness: there was little else he desired for the present than the hospitality of the dark.

In these days of faith-cures, and hypnotism, and telepathy, and subliminalities – why, the simple old world grows very confusing. But rarely, very rarely novel.

It was to be a day of queer experiences. He had never realized with how many miracles mere everyday life is besieged.

Fear tends to come from ignorance. Once I knew what the problem was, it was just a problem, nothing to fear.

Teaching a boy to be a man is the primary job of a father.

There's only one way to work -- like hell.

It's not living alone if you keep a rifle under the bed.

Many great works of art have only form, the sculpture of the thing. Color as used to signify realization by men like Titian and Rembrandt, gives greater life and tactile experience to the work.

'Battlefield' was one of those slow-building songs, the way 'Tattoo' was. It was kind of a word-of-mouth hit. The more people heard it, the more they started requesting it on the radio.

Only in Paris do couture workers, from seamstress to mannequin, worship a dress and treat it like a baby.

You go on reacting to the image not to the person, and hence there is no relationship. When there is no image, then there is relationship.

The city is recruited from the country.

the compulsion to work long years in pursuit of some inner vision must be fueled by stubborn fires.