It is one of the sublime provincialities of New York that its inhabitants lap up trivial gossip about essential nobodies they've never set eyes on, while continuing to boast that they could live somewhere for twenty years without so much as exchanging pleasantries with their neighbors across the hall.

The Englishman wants to be recognized as a gentleman, or as some other suitable species of human being; the American wants to be considered a good guy.

Nominally a great age of scientific inquiry, ours has actually become an age of superstition about the infallibility of science; of almost mystical faith in its nonmystical methods; above all ... of external verities; of traffic-cop morality and rabbit-test truth.

A great maxim of personal responsibility and mature achievement-Do It Yourself-is now the enthroned cliche for being occupied with nonessentials.

One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well.

The essence of the expert is that his field shall be very special and narrow: one of the ways in which he inspires confidence is to rigidly limit himself to the little toe; he would scarcely venture an off-the-record opinion on an infected little finger.

Conformity may not always reign in the prosperous bourgeois suburb, but it ultimately always governs.

The technique of winning is so shoddy, the terms of winning are so ignoble, the tenure of winning is so brief; and the specter of the has-been-a shameful rather than a pitiable sight today-brings a sudden chill even to our sunlit moments.

In an automobile civilization, which was one of constant motion and activity, there was almost no time to think; in a television one, there is small desire.

Temperament, like liberty, is important despite how many crimes are committed in its name.