If a mark of affection can sometimes be taken for an insult, perhaps the gesture of love is not universal: it too must be translated from one language to another, must be learned.

As a child, I thought that war and peace were opposites. Yet I lived in peace when Vietnam was in flames and I didn't experience war until Vietnam had laid down its weapons. I believe that war and peace are actually friends, who mock us.

We are a spectacular, splendid manifestation of life. We have language. . . . We have affection. We have genes for usefulness, and usefulness is about as close to a "common goal" of nature as I can guess at.

The one indisputable reality of dictatorship is that dissent, insult, and malevolent language do not go unpunished if it is allowed at all.

Get you gone, you dwarf,
You minimus of hindering knotgrass made,
You bead, you acorn!

Hurt, he'll never be hurt--he's made to hurt other people.