We live in the kind of world where courage is the most essential of virtues; without courage, the other virtues are useless.

Phoenix, Arizona: an oasis of ugliness in the midst of a beautiful wasteland.

God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.

I was once invited to take part in a heroic, possibly fatal enterprise, but I declined, mainly on account of sloth.

One must be reasonable in one's demands on life. For myself, all that I ask is: (1) accurate information; (2) coherent knowledge; (3) deep understanding; (4) infinite loving wisdom; (5) no more kidney stones, please.

Literature, like anything else, can become a wearisome business if you make a lifetime specialty of it. A healthy, wholesome man would no more spend his entire life reading great books than he would packing cookies for Nabisco.

In the end, for all our differences and conflicts, most women and men share the same food, work, shelter, bed, life, joy, anguish, and fate. We need each other.