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“أيها القراء المخدوعون إن هدف الصحيفة الأول إيه صحيفة ليست الوطنية ولا للثقافة ولا خدمه الشعب ولا حرية الرأي ولا رفع منار الفضيلة ولا شيء من كل هذه الخزعبلات
أن هدف الصحيفة الأول هو بيع الصحيفة هو المكسب هو أكل العيش فهدفنا الربح.
فإذا كانت الوطنية مربحه فلتحيا الوطنية وإذا كان الهزل والفكاهة أكثر ربحا فلتسقط الوطنية وليحيا الهزل والفكاهة وإذا كان ذكر الفضائح أشد ربحا فلتحيا الفضائح وإذا كانت محاربة الرذيلة وسيلة لانتشار الجريدة فلتحيا الفضيلة وإذا كانت الصورة الفاضحة والسيقان العارية والنهود البارزة وسيلة ربح فلتذهب الفضيلة إلى حيث ألقت.”
― يوسف السباعي, أرض النفاق

“I once expected to spend seven years walking around the world on foot. I walked from Mexico to Panama where the road ended before an almost uninhabited swamp called the Choco Colombiano. Even today there is no road. Perhaps it is time for me to resume my wanderings where I left off as a tropical tramp in the slums of Panama. Perhaps like Ambrose Bierce who disappeared in the desert of Sonora I may also disappear. But after being in all mankind it is hard to come to terms with oblivion - not to see hundreds of millions of Chinese with college diplomas come aboard the locomotive of history - not to know if someone has solved the riddle of the universe that baffled Einstein in his futile efforts to make space, time, gravitation and electromagnetism fall into place in a unified field theory - never to experience democracy replacing plutocracy in the military-industrial complex that rules America - never to witness the day foreseen by Tennyson 'when the war-drums no longer and the battle-flags are furled, in the parliament of man, the federation of the world.'

I may disappear leaving behind me no worldly possessions - just a few old socks and love letters, and my windows overlooking Notre-Dame for all of you to enjoy, and my little rag and bone shop of the heart whose motto is 'Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.' I may disappear leaving no forwarding address, but for all you know I may still be walking among you on my vagabond journey around the world."

[Shakespeare & Company, archived statement]”
― George Whitman

“I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.”
― John Keats

“His abhorrence and fear of alcohol did not extend to his power as host. He kept a huge cupboard of drinks in the station house and loved to serve large measures to visiting relatives--especially those he disliked--about which there was a definite element of spreading bait for garden snails.”
― John McGahern, That They May Face the Rising Sun