Some other places were not so good but maybe we were not so good when we were in them.

Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer. Those who do not last are always more beloved since no one has to see them in their long, dull, unrelenting, no-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, fights that they make to do something as they believe it should be done before they die. Those who die or quit early and easy and with every good reason are preferred because they are understandable and human. Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.

They were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see how wise he is.

In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.

I was young and not gloomy and there were always strange and comic things that happened in the worst time.

The English talked with inflected phrases. One phrase to mean everything.

I don't want to be your friend, baby. I am your friend.