Young people in my generation were sort of in lockstep, and it wasn't just the '40s, either. In the '30s and in the '50s it was the same. No one ever dropped out unless he got sick or got kicked out.

I began to know that each morning reasserted the problems of night before, that sleep suspended all but changed nothing, that you couldn’t make yourself over between dawn and dusk.

There was no harm in taking aim, even if the target was a dream.

I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.

It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were made instead by something ignorant in the human heart

What I mean is, I love winter, and when you really love something, then it loves you back, in whatever way it has to love.

As I said, this was my sarcastic summer. It was only long after that I recognized sarcasm as the protest of people who are weak.

But something held me back. Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.

Sarcasm is the protest of the weak.

Peace is indivisible, and the surrounding world confusion found no reflection inside me.

We are all born equally far from the sun.

There is no other continent in the world where time is wasted like it is wasted in Africa.

Over the past two hundred years philosophy has shaken off Christian faith. It has not given up Christianity's cardinal error -the belief that humans are radically different from all other animals.

It is bad enough to be bad, but to be bad in bad taste is unpardonable.

When I write with Maiden, then I write only with the guys in Maiden, we don't do songs from outside people.

Nothing that can be, can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes.

Wherever a Scotsman goes, here goes Burns. His grand whole, catholic soul squares with the good of all; therefore we find him in everything, everywhere.

You can't write something actively trying to please everyone - you're going to end up with watery soup that way. You just have to write stories you would want to read and hope that people like them.

I'm cool. I don't need to be skinny. I like to be strong.

The Italians are fond of red clothes, peacock plumes, and embroidery; and I remember one rainy morning in the city of Palermo, the street was ablaze with scarlet umbrellas.

Egypt is the next domino to fall and, as they say, so goes Egypt so goes the Middle East.