Quotes from book

Friday

“It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.”

“One should not attend even the end of the world without a good breakfast.”

“It seems to me that any law that is not enforced and can't be enforced weakens all other laws.”

“Geniuses and supergeniuses always make their own rules on sex as on everything else; they do not accept the monkey customs of their lessers.”

“Autobiography is usually honest but it is never truthful.”

“I don't see why human people make such a heavy trip out of sex. It isn't anything complex, it is simply the best thing in life, even better than food.”

“A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.”

“All normal human beings have soi-disant mixed-up glands. The race is divided into two parts: those who know this and those who do not.”

“Friday, don't despise assassins indiscriminately. As with any tool, merit or demerit lies in how it is used.”

“A religion is sometime a source of happiness, and I would not deprive anyone of happiness. But it is a comfort appropriate for the weak, not for the strong. The great trouble with religion — any religion — is that a religionist, having accepted certain propositions by faith, cannot thereafter judge those propositions by evidence. One may bask at the warm fire of faith or choose to live in the bleak uncertainty of reason — but one cannot have both.”

“Las Vegas is a three-ring circus with a hangover.”

“Self-pity, he said, is the most demoralizing of all vices.”

“Marriages are arranged in heaven but the bills must be paid here on earth.”

“But I do not willingly involve us in nationalistic wars; the side of the angels is seldom self-evident.”

“People who are busy and happy don’t write diaries; they are too busy living.”

“I had learned lately that wanting something and being able to pay for it were not the same.”

“I suspect that there are just two sorts of lawyers: those who spend their efforts making life easy for other people—and parasites.”

“Religious = absolute belief without proof.”

“No one knows much about California politics, including California politicians.”