9 quotes
If you want to be your own master, his father used to say, always be surprised by evil; never anticipate it.
Birds of America (1971)
Ars longa vita brevis est was a truth that could not be argued with in the Eternal City.
Birds of America (1971)
They would not be happy unless she conformed to their definition of enjoyment, which meant that she would have to be miserable to satisfy them.
Birds of America (1971)
Making exceptions was usually a poor idea, he found; it was the same principle as 'Just one won't hurt you.'
Birds of America (1971)
Yet it was part of being an American that, once you got started, you felt impelled to tell all the people all the truth all the time.
Birds of America (1971)
Maybe any action becomes cowardly once you stop to reason about it. Conscience doth make cowards of us all, eh mamma mia? If you start an argument with yourself, that makes two people at least, and when you have two people, one of them starts appeasing the other.
Birds of America (1971)
It struck him that the closer Nature got to the human, the uglier it could be. You could hardly find a plant that was not beautiful, even in a strange mottled way, but there were plenty of hideous simians.
Birds of America (1971)
The clamor of agreement betrayed the anti-French sentiment ever ready to be mobilized when Americans in Paris got together. And as happened with anti-Semites merrily fraternizing, nobody at the table seemed to remember that there were French people present.
Birds of America (1971)
At home I never thought I was much of a conformist. But I now see that I was without knowing it. I did what everybody else did without being aware I was copying them. Here I mind being different. Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.
Birds of America (1971)