I once read that the Devil studied Basque for seven years and only lea — L. Sprague de Camp

"Three things should not be counted upon: the level of a river, the tameness of a lion, and the promise of a king."

"I passed that off as women’s intuition, which is wrong more often than not. People remember the times it works and forget those it fails."

"For thousands of years, priests and philosophers have told us to love mankind without giving any sound reason for loving the creatures. The mass of them are a lot of cruel, treacherous, hairless apes. They hate us intellectuals, longhairs, highbrows, eggheads, or double-domes, despite—or perhaps because—without us they would still be running naked in the wilderness and turning over flat stones for their meals. Love them? Hah!"

"But what argument could I offer? It was nothing but an irrational feeling—the kind of “premonition” we get from time to time but remember only on the rare occasions when it is fulfilled by the event. I had no evidence."

"The world is full of people who, if they got to Heaven, would complain about the tune of the harps and the dampness of the clouds."

"I fear me that the eighteenth century, which I have idealized all these years, never really existed. The real one was far dirtier, more narrow-minded, brutal, orthodox, and superstitious than I could have ever conceived without seeing it."