“Your universities teach you to be eternal cynics, a cynicism that can be only drowned in alcohol and diet pills and psychoanalysts and golf. Forget your cynicism. There is not one who has more respect for life than a revolutionist.”

“If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.”

“I can never get used to the fact, though I know it, that women are born cynics. Men have to learn cynicism. Infant girls could teach it to them.”

“Morality and expediency coincide more than the cynics allow.”

“…you know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.”

“Cynicism is easy. An optimist is a braver cynic.”

“Don't let yourself become cynical. Cynicism is a cheap emotion, a craven substitute for thought and action. Cynicism corrodes the will, dulls the conscience, blunts your sense of right and wrong… Stay alert to fine distinctions: become a pessimist like me.”

“The universe doesn’t have secrets,” I said cynically, “only lies and swindles.”

“Barbarism has its vices, its sophistries, no less than civilization. Your cynicisms and sophistications are weak and childish beside the elemental cynicism, the vital sophistication of what you call savagery. If our virtues were unspoiled as a new-born panther cub, our sins were older than Nineveh.”

“You're killing yourself with cynicism. Your idols got taken away from you one by one and now you have nothing to give your love to.”