... a thing can only live through a pious illusion.

Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all.

Every past is worth condemning.

Happiness: being able to forget or, to express in a more learned fashion.

The great works are produced in such an ecstasy of love that they must always be unworthy of it, however great their worth otherwise.

A thing can only live through a pious illusion.

We suffer from the malady of words, and have no trust in any feeling that is not stamped with its special word.

The crowd of influences streaming on the young soul is so great, the clods of barbarism and violence flung at him so strange and overwhelming, that an assumed stupidity is his only refuge.

The power of gradually losing all feeling of strangeness or astonishment, and finally being pleased at anything, is called the historical sense or historical culture.

Life always refused simplicity.

If only Simon were here. He could probably bore you to sleep.

I either delegate something, I dump it, or I deal with it.

It feels nice to be wanted, to be reading and hearing good things about me, so I have to push myself.

For the average person, all problems date to World War II; for the more informed, to World War I; for the genuine historian, to the French Revolution.

I spend a lot of time with my family. I go to bed early, don't watch too much television, don't read everything that's written about me whether positive or negative.

It was my first time in Kansas City. In about two or three days I had a gig at a place called The Monroe Inn.

When in doubt, resort to animation.

It is said of a lonely man that he does not appreciate the life of society. This is like saying he hates hiking because he dislikes walking in thick forest on a dark night.

Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it.