You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.

When you have a peace movement that has an actual war, it's different from one that has wars that our country is not totally involved in. During the war in Vietnam, and to a lesser degree the wars in Central America where our country was directly involved, it was easier to organize.

I don't believe civilization can do a lot more than educate a person's senses.

Hindsight, usually looked down upon, is probably as valuable as foresight, since it does include a few facts.

My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life.

Everyone, real or invented, deserves the open destiny of life.

People say, "Why do you call your kids up, why do you worry like that?" And I say, "I was raised like that." My grandmother looked at my father with the same eyes when he was sixty and she was eighty-five.