«The closer you come to being yourself on the screen, the longer you last [because] on television there's always the risk of a quick shot in an off-guard moment, a chance insight; and if you're playing a part, you'll be exposed.»

«What you are as a single person, you will be as a married person, only to a greater degree. Any negative character trait will be intensified in a marriage relationship, because you will feel free to let your guard down -- that person has committed himself to you and you no longer have to worry about scaring him off.»

«To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.»

«It is with trifles and when he is off guard that a man best reveals his character.»

«Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserved; it is life's undress rehearsal, its backroom, its dressing room, from which we go forth to more careful and guarded intercourse, leaving behind...cast-off and everyday clothing.»

«BEN: You lucky, lucky bastard. BRIAN: What? BEN: Proper little jailer's pet, aren't we? BRIAN: What do you mean? BEN: You must have slipped him a few shekels, eh? BRIAN: Slipped him a few shekels? You saw him spit in my face! BEN: Ohh! What wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face! I sometimes hang awake at night dreaming of being spat at in the face. BRIAN: Well, it's not exactly friendly, is it? They had me in manacles! BEN: Manacles! Ooh oooh oh oh. My idea of heaven is to be allowed to be put in manacles... just for a few hours. They must think the sun shines out o' your arse, sonny. BRIAN: Oh, lay off me. I've had a hard time! BEN: You've had a hard time?! I've been here five years! They only hung me the right way up yesterday! So, don't you come 'rou-- BRIAN: All right. All right. BEN: They must think you're Lord God Almighty. BRIAN: What will they do to me? BEN: Oh, you'll probably get away with crucifixion. BRIAN: Crucifixion?! BEN: Yeah, first offence. BRIAN: Get away with crucifixion?! It's-- BEN: Best thing the Romans ever did for us. BRIAN: What?! BEN: Oh, yeah. If we didn't have crucifixion, this country would be in a right bloody mess. BRIAN: Guards! BEN: Nail him up, I say!»

«CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance --against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes the number twenty-seven --a judgment that would be entirely conclusive is Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs, and (b) something about arithmetic.»

«So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of us put off our clothes, saving that every one put them off for washing.»

«What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God's eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard.»

«Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.»