In order to read one must sit down, usually indoors. I am restless and would rather sail a boat than crack a book. I've never had a very lively literary curiosity, and it has sometimes seemed to me that I am not really a literary fellow at all. Except that I write for a living.

I discovered, though, that once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back, no chance of resuming one of life's more stereotyped roles.

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.

Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.

Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people-- people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

Don Marquis came down after a month on the wagon, ambled over to the bar, and announced, 'I've conquered that goddamn willpower of mine. Gimme a double Scotch.

I believe... that security declines as security machinery expands.