Emotions and Feelings

Afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant. I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

For my own part I don’t object to old jokes—indeed, I reverence them. When sea-sickness and adultery have ceased to be funny, western civilization will have ceased to exist.

The characteristic of the hour is that the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will.

The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first. . . . Therefore, I shall resign the presidency, effective at noon tomorrow.

What America needs most today is what it once had, but has lost: the lift of a driving dream.

What America needs most today is what it once had, but has lost: the lift of a driving dream.

[ Quoting a sign held up by a young girl on the campaign trail :] Bring us together again.

At the center of all these noble races we cannot fail to see the blond beast of prey, the magnificent blond beast avidly prowling round for spoil and victory.

What can largely be achieved by punishment, in man or beast, is the increase of fear, the intensification of intelligence, the mastering of desires: punishment tames man in this way but does not make him “better”—we would be more justified in asserting the opposite.

In dreams we all resemble this savage.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travellers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as “nymphets.”

Never mind the bottle, as long as it gets you drunk.

In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment.

In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment.

I like to enjoy myself, but rest assured that I can be as serious as anyone else can.

It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

It was a fine cry—loud and long—but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

C’est ce dequoy j’ay le plus de peur que la peur .

Il faut manger pour vivre et non pas vivre pour manger .

Wilson Mizner . . . recalls his embarrassment when he first came into the world, and found a woman in bed with him.

As he saw it, there was only one choice—to be strong and upright, or to commit suicide.

This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty . . . what you will. I am going to sing for you, a little off key, perhaps, but I will sing. I will sing while you croak, I will dance over your dirty corpse.