If I fear anything, I fear the atmosphere of the war, the power which it gives to all the things I hate - the newspapers, the politicians, the puritans, the scoutmasters, the middle-aged merciless spinsters. I fear the way I might behave, if I were exposed to this atmosphere. I shrink from the duty of opposition. I am afraid I should be reduced to a chattering enraged monkey, screaming back hate at their hate.

I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.

Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.

California is a tragic country - like Palestine, like every Promised Land. Its short history is a fever-chart of migrations - the land rush, the gold rush, the…

Life on earth is a hand-to-hand mortal combat... between the law of love and the law of hate.

'Let someone else get killed!' 'Suppose everyone on our side felt that way?' 'Well then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?'

There are plenty of good reasons for fighting,' I said, 'but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with y…