The Shadow had no imagination. He neither looked at naked women nor thought of ridding the world of dictators like Hitler or Mussolini.

I have committed many sins in my life. This precise sin-the sin against poets-is without absolution.

History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.

It may be that the most avid readers of new fiction in America today are film producers, an indication of the trouble were in.

I am telling you what I know—words have music and if you are a musician you will write to hear them.

I knew he was unreliable, but he was fun to be with. He was a child’s ideal companion, full of surprises and happy animal energy. He enjoyed food and drink. He liked to try new things. He brought home coconuts, papayas, mangoes, and urged them on our reluctant conservative selves. On Sundays he liked to discover new places, take us on endless bus or trolley rides to some new park or beach he knew about. He always counseled daring, in whatever situation, the courage to test the unknown, an instruction that was thematically in opposition to my mother’s.

In the twentieth century one of the most personal relationships to have developed is that of the person and the state. It's become a fact of life that governments have become very intimate with people, most always to their detriment.