The papacy again, representing the traditional unity of European civilization, has also shown itself unable to limit effectively the push of nationalism.

Man tells his aspiration in his God; but in his demon he shows his depth of experience; and casts light into the cavern through which he worked his cause up to the cheerful day.

Kafka is still unrecognized. He thought he was a comic writer.

There are scenes here and effects here that would make George S. Patton wince.

Catholic theology believes that God gave man free will, and you can’t give somebody free will and then send in a play from the sidelines.

The argument between wives and whores is an old one; each one thinking that whatever she is, at least she is not the other.

According to the new ethics, virtue is not restrictive but expansive, a sentiment and even an intoxication.

The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself.

Faulkner turned out to be a great teacher. When a student asked a question ineptly, he answered the question with what the student had really wanted to know.

There are things in American culture that want to wipe the class distinction. Blue jeans. Ready-made clothes. Coca-Cola.

One of the surest signs of the Philistine is his reverence for the superior tastes of those who put him down.

If a movie isn’t a hit right out of the gate, they drop it. Which means that the whole mainstream Hollywood product has been skewed toward violence and vulgar teen comedy.

All personal, psychological, social, and institutionalized domination on this earth can be traced back to its source: the phallic identities of men.

One should, therefore, in the interests of democracy itself seek to substitute the doctrine of the right man for the doctrine of the rights of man.

Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine...

I love it now that a large minority of people who are handicapped prefer to call themselves crippled. This is all part of the game, like queer theory.

Home Alone goes Hollywood, a funny premise until the kids start pulling off stunts not even Steven Spielberg would know how to do.

I am utterly bored by celebrity interviews. Most celebrities are devoid of interest.

Well, you know what, I’m 60 years old, and I’ve been interested in politics since I was on my daddy’s knee. During the 1948 election, we were praying for Truman. I know a lot about...

Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved.

The true humanist maintains a just balance between sympathy and selection.

The answer to old age is to keep one’s mind busy and to go on with one’s life as if it were interminable. I always admired Chekhov for building a new house when he was...

Of the female black authors, I really like Morrison’s early books a lot. But she’s really become so much a clone of Faulkner. He did it better.

They are words you don’t easily forget: I don’t have good news.

Class is often invisible in America in the movies, and usually not the subject of the film.

You think intercourse is a private act; it’s not, it’s a social act. Men are sexually predatory in life; and women are sexually manipulative. When two individuals come together and leave their gender outside the...

Act strenuously, would appear to be our faith, and right thinking will take care of itself.

It’s one thing to fight for what you believe in, another thing to fight for what others believe in.

Foucault was the one person I met in France that I could talk to. He was a mensch. You know whether you agree with him or not because you know what he is saying.

What I really dream of is that somebody would blow everything I’ve done out of the water in a beautiful way, which would clear the way for something better to come along.

I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society...

If Hollywood stars speak out, so do all sorts of other people. Now Hollywood stars can get a better hearing.

No woman needs intercourse; few women escape it.

Perhaps as good a classification as any of the main types is that of the three lusts distinguished by traditional Christianity – the lust of knowledge, the lust of sensation, and the lust of power.

Would that the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy, might be laid to heart; that a sense of the true aim of life might elevate the tone of politics and trade till public...

I never met anybody in my life who says, I want to be a critic. People want to be a fireman, poet, novelist.

I do my best not to have any expectations when I go into a movie because it’s not fair.

Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.

Well, you know, a lot of modern directors and their movies are influenced by the flat lighting and textbook cutting style of television.

Always remember that better days are ahead – if not in this life, in the next.

The ultimate binding element in the medieval order was subordination to the divine will and its earthly representatives, notably the pope.

Any biographer must of necessity become a pilgrim a peripatetic, obsessed literary pilgrim, a traveler with four eyes.

One more recent novelist to come along is Cormac McCarthy. Him, I like.

What I learned from this movie, 40 Days and 40 Nights: Absitenence can be a very good thing. Especially from box offices where this film is playing.

I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class.

The genius of any slave system is found in the dynamics which isolate slaves from each other, obscure the reality of a common condition, and make united rebellion against the oppressor inconceivable.

An American of the present day reading his Sunday newspaper in a state of lazy collapse is one of the most perfect symbols of the triumph of quantity over quality that the world has yet...

Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.

Gertrude Stein really thought of Hemingway as frail. He almost married Stein.

When all of us are forgotten, people will still be remembering Stephen King.