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“You don’t seem the superstitious type.”

“I’m not,” Ben said. “I’m careful. There’s a difference.”

When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

“All stories are true,” Skarpi said. “But this one really happened, if that’s what you mean.” He took another slow drink, then smiled again, his bright eyes dancing. “More or less. You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way. Too much truth confuses the facts. Too much honesty makes you sound insincere.”

They [the government] really want to maintain power. At the same time, they refuse to communicate. They refuse to have good intentions. They refuse to be sincere. How can that last?

“These games are marvelous,” Amanda said. “I like them especially because they are so meaningless and boring, and trivial. These qualities, once regarded as less than desirable, are now everywhere enthroned as the key elements in our psychological lives, as reflected in the art of the period as well as—”

Later I became very involved in writing. I really enjoyed that moment of writing. People would pass around my sentences. That was a feeling I never had before. It was like a bullet out of the gun.

I’m an artist who is always looking for what is possible. I’m always looking to extend the boundaries.

I cannot ever accept the kind of conditions where you can sacrifice someone’s rights.

We need clear rules to play the game. We need to have respect for the law. If you play a chess game but after two or three moves you can change the rules, how can people play with you? Of course you will win, but after 60 years you will still be a bad player because you never meet anyone who can challenge you. What kind of game is that? Is that interesting? This game is not right, but who is going to say, 'Hey, let’s play fairly?'

"Will you be wanting to contest the divorce?" I asked Mrs. Davis.

"I should think not," she said calmly, "although I suppose on of us should, for the fun of the thing. An uncontested divorce always seems to me contrary to the spirit of divorce."

To express yourself needs a reason, but expressing yourself is the reason.

People always like to hear that they’re under stress, makes them feel better. You can imagine what they’d feel if they were told they weren’t under stress.