Belief in God? An afterlife? I believe in rock: this apodictic rock beneath my feet.

There has never yet been a human society worthy of the name of civilization. Civilization remains a remote ideal.

Let the people walk. Or ride horses, bicycles, mules, wild pigs-anything-but keep the automobiles and the motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out. We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy places.

The artist's job? To be a miracle worker: make the blind see, the dull feel, the dead to live.

Any hack can safely rail away at foreign powers beyond the sea; but a good writer is a critic of the society he lives in.

When the situation is desperate, it is too late to be serious. Be playful.

I, too, believe in fidelity. But how can I be true to one woman without being false to all the others?