History isn't the lies of the victors, as I once glibly assured Old Joe Hunt; I know that now. It's more the memories of the survivors, most of whom are neither victorious or defeated.

A pier is a disappointed bridge; yet stare at it for long enough and you can dream it to the other side of the Channel.

Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

The writer must be universal in sympathy and an outcast by nature: only then can he see clearly.

The land of embarrassment and breakfast.

When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

What is the easiest, the most comfortable thing for a writer to do? To congratulate the society in which he lives: to admire its biceps, applaud its progress, tease it endearingly about its follies.

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

The more you learn, the less you fear. "Learn" not in the sense of academic study, but in the practical understanding of life.

In a world full of slavery, is it any wonder then that we cannot understand what it is to be free.

I watched you undress. Shame on you!

She knew what it felt like to tremble like that before touching someone -- desire so acute that it became despair.

Time is a fluid condition which has no existence except in the momentary avatars of individual people.

Managers in all too many American companies do not achieve the desired results because nobody makes them do it.

Take every opportunity that comes your way and most importantly have fun with it.

Simulation is the situation created by any system of signs when it becomes sophisticated enough, autonomous enough, to abolish its own referent and to replace it with itself.

It's no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots.

Nac Mac Feegle! The Wee Free Men! Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!

The problems of elites is an old one for which Americans have found no solid answer.