Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.

In the last camp they all ate grass, until the authorities forbade them to pull it up. They were accustomed to having the fruits of their little communal gardens stolen by the guards, after they had done all the work; but at the last camp everything was stolen.

Thousand got away to other countries; thousands returned to Spain tempted by false promises of kindness. By the tens of thousands, these Spaniards died of neglect in the concentration camps.

I only knew about daily life. It was said, well, it isn't everybody's daily life. That is why I started.

I daresay I was the worst bed partner in five continents.

Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.

Why do people talk of the horrors of old age? It's great. I feel like a fine old car with the parts gradually wearing out, but I'm not complaining,... Those who find growing old terrible are people who haven't done what they wanted with their lives.

After the desperate years of their own war, after six years of repression inside Spain and six years of horror in exile, these people remain intact in spirit. They are armed with a transcendent faith; they have never won, and yet they have never accepted defeat.

I didn't write. I just wandered about.

If I practised sex, out of moral conviction, that was one thing; but to enjoy it... seemed a defeat.

It is alleged that half a million Spanish men, women and children fled to France after the Franco victory.

But now that the guerrilla fighting is over, the Spaniards are again men without a country or families or homes or work, though everyone appreciates very much what they did.

I see mysteries and complications wherever I look, and I have never met a steadily logical person.

Between his eyes, there were four lines, the marks of such misery as children should never feel. He spoke with that wonderful whisky voice that so many Spanish children have, and he was a tough and entire little boy.

And though various organizations in America and England collected money and sent food parcels to these refugees, nothing was ever received by the Spanish.

The road passed through a curtain of pine forest and came out on a flat, rolling snow field. In this field the sprawled or bunched bodies of Germans lay thick, like some dark shapeless vegetable.

I followed the war wherever I could reach it.

Citizenship is a tough occupation which obliges the citizen to make his own informed opinion and stand by it.

Furthermore, they were constantly informed by all the camp authorities that they had been abandoned by the world: they were beggars and lucky to receive the daily soup of starvation.

There were ten concentration camps in France from 1939 on.

It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.

Then somebody suggested I should write about the war, and I said I didn't know anything about the war. I did not understand anything about it. I didn't see how I could write it.

I found out about the Spanish war because I was in Germany when it began.

Journalism at its best and most effective is education. Apparently people would not learn for themselves, nor from others.

In November you begin to know how long the winter will be.

They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.

I'm a creature of habit. I go to restaurants all the time and stuff.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

Men even contract the dirty, filthy habit of chewing tobacco, and when the habit gets a good hold upon them they are never satisfied except when they have a wad of the stuff in their mouth. So with drinking. It is largely a habit.

When you do the wrong thing, knowing it is wrong, you do so because you haven't developed the habit of effectively controlling or neutralizing strong inner urges that tempt you, or because you have established the wrong habit and don't know how to eliminate them effectively.

Habit is a great deadener.

Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it.

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

The accent got lost somewhere along the way. I'm a little embarrassed about it. When I arrived in LA I assumed I'd be able to put on the American accent. It proved difficult so I had six months working with a dialect coach and it's become a habit.

Professors simply can't discuss a thing. Habit compels them to deliver a lecture.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

No habit or quality is more easily acquired than hypocrisy, nor any thing sooner learned than to deny the sentiments of our hearts and the principle we act from: but the seeds of every passion are innate to us, and nobody comes into the world without them.

When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.

My writing has to support more than my research habit, but I love to curl up with a book about some dusty corner of history.

The secret of a leader lies in the tests he has faced over the whole course of his life and the habit of action he develops in meeting those tests.

I applaud the American Cancer Society for all they do to eradicate smoking. Their local, state and national efforts help to discourage young people from taking up this deadly habit and the resources they provide have helped numerous smokers quit.

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

Get the habit of analysis - analysis will in time enable synthesis to become your habit of mind.

Life never becomes a habit to me. It's always a marvel.

My habit of glorifying things far away in space and time, also contributed to my social isolation.

Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking.