“And there is the fallacy of existence: the idea that one would be happy forever and aye with a given situation or series of accomplishments.”

“Perhaps that is the real surprise of love; it exists, but one may not attribute causes and effects to it. The existence may appear to be a mere fallacy to the minds of some, and by the time they realise what hit them, they would already be down and dead.”

“Before he (Francis Bacon) came along, people conducted all their arguments through a series of logical fallacies or simply shouting louder than the other guy, or, if they did use facts, they only selected ones that reinforced their prejudices and advanced their ideas.” Oberon replies “don’t they still do that?”

“The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.”

“For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence?”

“Why did I hope we would be happy abroad? A change of environment is that traditional fallacy upon which doomed loves, and lungs, rely.”