You never heard anybody ask 'Elvis who?'

I suppose I was a little bit of what would be called today a nerd. I didn't have girlfriends, and really I wasn't a very social boy.

My parents encouraged me in everything I ever wanted to do.

I saw how many people were poor and how many kids my age went to school hungry in the morning, which I don't think most of my contemporaries in racially segregated schools in the South thought very much about at the time.

I had a tight stomach all the time. I actually developed ulcers. I've learned better than to put all that internal pressure on myself.

I believe that writing is derivative. I think good writing comes from good reading.

America is a great story and there is a river on every page of it.