Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
I don't like to write like God. It is only because you never do it, though, that the critics think you can't do it.
The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.
The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.
But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.
Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.
Man is not made for defeat.
If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.
In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
Ezra was right half the time, and when he was wrong, he was so wrong you were never in any doubt about it.
An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
All our words from loose using have lost their edge.
You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.
Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.
I wake up in the morning and my mind starts making sentences, and I have to get rid of them fast - talk them or write them down.
If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.
What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.
A writer of fiction is really... a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men.