We have come out of the time when obedience, the acceptance of discipline, intelligent courage and resolution were most important, into that more difficult time when it is a man's duty to understand his world rather than simply fight for it.

In going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you'll dull and blunt the instrument you write with. But I would rather have it bent and dull and know I had to put it to the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.

A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.

I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows.

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.

I don’t. I don’t want anybody else to touch you. I’m silly. I get furious if they touch you.

Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?