Writing should be dangerous: as dangerous as Socrates. There should be no refuge for the writer either in the Ivory Tower or the Social Church. - Josephine Herbst

There is no such thing as a writer untouched by his time. Even the most inner experience is a response to some outside.

Every period takes stock of the one preceding it and the past that was good enough for the fathers never seems good enough for the children no matter how idyllic it may seem to the great-grandchildren.

We are not only what we are today but what we were yesterday and if you burn your immediate past there is nothing left but ashes which are all very well for those heads that like nothing better than to be sprinkled with ashes. But are these ash-covered heads really the spokesmen of our conscience?