Men insist most vehemently upon their certainties when their hold upon them has been shaken.

I’m not a martyr, just a musician who dies for your sins. Oh, that’s what a martyr is? Very well then, I am a martyr, if you insist.

It is meritorious to insist on forms; religion and all else naturally clothes itself in forms. Everywhere the formed world is the only habitable one

She had to give her teachers credit: they were right to insist all pupils carry scissors, handkerchiefs, perfume and hair ribbons at all times. At some point she’d learn why they also required a red lace doily and a lemon

Scotsmen, she had occasion to observe, often did have nice knees. Perhaps that was why they insisted upon kilts.

My father was a very popular singer and stage actor during his time, in the 1950s. But he didn’t take any formal lessons in music, which was probably why he insisted I study music so I could get a proper base and build a strong career in it.

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually

Some people insist that ‘mediocre’ is better than ‘best.’ They delight in clipping wings because they themselves can’t fly. They despise brains because they have none.

Only those with no memory insist on their originality.

There is no hierarchy of values by which one culture has the right to insist on all its own values and deny those of another.

If you insist that individual rights are the summum bonum, then the whole structure of society falls down.