> “I ate civilization. It poisoned me; I was defiled. And then," he added in a lower tone, "I ate my own wickedness.”

> Ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity.

> Every man with a little leisure and enough money for railway tickets, every man, indeed, who knows how to read, has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.

> The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

> ...reality, however utopian, is something from which people feel the need of taking pretty frequent holidays....

> For in spite of language, in spite of intelligence and intuition and sympathy, one can never really communicate anything to anybody.

> To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.

> Armaments, universal debt, and planned obsolescence—those are the three pillars of Western prosperity. If war, waste, and moneylenders were abolished, you'd collapse. And while you people are overconsuming the rest of the world sinks more and more deeply into chronic disaster.

> One of the principal functions of a friend is to suffer (in a milder and symbolic form) the punishments that we should like, but are unable, to inflict upon our enemies.

> Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.