The true confessors have been aware that not only is life mostly failure, but that in one's failure or pettiness or wrongness exists the living drama of the self.

There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.

Always a godfather, never a god.

I said, well, it's a very primitive country, the United States, and it's full of superstitions, which come out of a very fundamental religious bias, which is primitive Christianity.

I think the Chinese will say the hell with you and pull their money out of the United States. That's the end of our wars.

A superficial education would be worse than none. But a full education would open every man's eyes to the nature of human existence.

I was born a writer. When that happens, you have no choice in the matter.