How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked to pieces than take part in such an abominable business.
Poetry is a comforting piece of fiction set to more or less lascivious music.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.
People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?
If the soul is impartial in receiving information, it devotes to that information the share of critical investigation the information deserves, and its truth or untruth thus becomes clear. However, if the soul is infected with partisanship for a particular opinion or sect, it accepts without a moment's hesitation the information that is agreeable to it. Prejudice and partisanship obscure the critical faculty and preclude critical investigation. The results is that falsehoods are accepted and transmitted.
Fiction is truth. I think fiction is the truest thing there ever was. My whole effort is to remove that distinction. The writer is the midwife of understanding. It's very important for me to tell politics like a story, to make it real.
To really enjoy pleasures, you must know how to leave them.
The muse does not allow the praise-de-serving here to die: she enthrones him in the heavens.