I don't know what it is that makes a writer go to his desk in his shut-off room day after day after year after year unless it is the sure knowledge that not to have done the daily stint of writing that day is infinitely more agonizing than to write.

There are people who have a penchant for cities-more than that, a talent for them, a gift of sensing them, of feeling their rhythm and pulsebeats, as others have a highly developed music sense, or color reaction. It is a thing that cannot be acquired.

Books should be cherished, like children, books are for the next generation, like children, like history.

A woman can look both moral and exciting... if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle.

Cherry cobbler is shortcake with a soul.

I sometimes wonder ... if the land is not destroying the people who inhabit it as the people who inhabit it are destroying the land. A magic continent, a Peculiar Treasure, stuffed with riches, millions in it are starving in the midst of plenty.

Does one eat peanuts at a ball game?' 'It ain't hardly legal if you don't.