"Philip Roth is a good writer, but I wouldn't want to shake hands with him."

"Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual."

"A wise man looks upon men as he does on horses; all their comparisons of title, wealth, and place, he consider but as harness."

"Like democracy, civilization has to be willed and practice. Otherwise, society is a war of all against all, powered by individual cunning in the pursuit of wealth and power."

"The world began when I was born and the world is mine to win"

"Dream lofty dreams, as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you one day shall be: your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil."

"How much fame, money, and power does a woman have to achieve on her own before you can punch her in the face?"

"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time."

"There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it."

"New York: A third-rate Babylon."

"There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob."

"I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket."