Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination. Learning to suspend your imagination and live completely in the very second of the present with no before and no after is the greatest gift a soldier can acquire.

Summer is a discouraging time to work - you don't feel death coming on the way it does in the fall when the boys really put pen to paper.

Part of you died each year when the leaves fell from the trees and their branches were bare against the wind and the cold, wintry light.

Never fall in love?" "Always," said the count. "I am always in love.

If you have to go away,' she said,'is it absolutely necessary to kill off everything you leave behind? I mean do you have to take away everything?

Fascism is a lie told by bullies.

A serious writer is not to be confounded with a solemn writer. A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl.