If you were mean to your parents, they'd give you a good belt in the gob and send you flying across the room.

It's not enough to be American. You always have to be something else, Irish-American, German-American, and you'd wonder how they'd get along if someone hadn't invented the hyphen

I just have to proceed as usual. No matter what happens, nothing helps with the writing of the next book.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's been a minute since my last confession.

He says, You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can't make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. You might be poor , your shoes might be broken , but your mind is a palace.

After a full belly all is poetry.

I asked my dad what afflicted meant and he said 'Sickness son, and things that don't fit.'