Feelings of superiority always stem from an illusion.

The Bear had once confided to me that Durrell's ego could fit snugly in the basilica of St. Peter's in Rome but in very few other public places. This runaway megalomania marked him as a blood member of the fraternity of generals. If looks alone could make generals, Durrell would have been a cinch. He was built lean and slim and dark, like a Doberman. A man of breeding and refrigerated intelligence, he ordered his life like a table of logarithms.

Who are you?' he asked.I am the future queen of this world, at the very least. You may refer to me as Mistress Koboi for the next five minutes. After that you may refer to me as Aaaaarrrrgh, hold your throat, die screaming, and so on.

When dealing with writers it breaks down like this: a regular writer is your average everyday megalomaniac. Like every artist, there's a part of them that believes--nay, knows--the world turns for them. Most are harmless. Some are obnoxious. Some are Bret Easton Ellis.

He did have his beliefs, chiefly in his own genius.

Man cannot be content in his riches even if he has the whole world, there must be a frivolous extra desire.

In the days when hyenas of hate suckle the babes of men, and jackals of hypocrisy pimp their mothers’ broken hearts, may children not look to demons of ignorance for hope.

I can see why people find him [Hugo Chávez] charming. He's very ebullient, as they say. I've heard him make a speech, though, and he has a vice that's always very well worth noticing because it's always a bad sign: he doesn't know when to sit down. He's worse than Castro was. He won't shut up. Then he told me that he didn't think the United States landed on the moon and didn't believe in the existence of Osama bin Laden. He thought all of this was all a put-up job. He's a wacko.

It would not do to be Lord of a universe inhabited solely by serfs.

Denying realism amounts to megalomania.