Art in which adults can take no pleasure is unfit for children.

You are unlikely to hold any second-hand opinions; few of us ever get beyond fourth or fifth.

Tom Wolfe coined "plutography" to describe the voyeurism exemplified by Architectural Digest, at one end of the scale, and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous at the other. Yet it is "pornocracy" that would have been prophetic.

When the benighted differ with me, it is only natural, for they are benighted. When they do not, it only strengthens my case, for even the benighted agree with me.

In art incompetence is usually taken for directness and sincerity.

There's no fun in rectifying injustice without scourging the unjust.

It is less dangerous to follow, by being last to start applauding, than to lead, by being first to stop.

It should be obvious that journalists do not pursue truth disinterestedly, nor government bureaucrats the common weal. It is not their incentives that are perverse, but our expectations.

Nothing is trashier than academic discourse about trash.

"No friends to the right" is the bedrock principle on which left and right agree.

The worst never lack for self-esteem.

The up-to-date bully yells for help while he's beating you up.

Today it is only the privileged and powerful who can be threatened with violence in public with impunity.

Everyone needs a reason to get up in the morning, and a drug habit is a compelling reason.

It is simple to cheat an honest man; and one of the great themes of modern history is honest men getting cheated.

I bring my readers the glad tidings that there's a lot you can't fix and shouldn't worry about, and it doesn't seem to make them happy.

It is on the most dubious propositions that we lavish our most ardent desires.

It is a great honor for a book to be burned.

A little truth, hard-won, can last a man for life. It is lies and nonsense for which a tolerance soon becomes a taste, a taste an appetite, and an appetite at last an insatiable craving.