Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game - and do it by watching first some high school or small-town teams.

The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers

In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years.

Maxims in times of danger are useless, experience is incommunicable. The knotted strands of life, desire, assumptions, and moral codes cannot be unsnarled; they can only be cut, which is what happens when an air raid occurs, with a silencing fortissimo like the finale of a Beethoven symphony.

The mind tends to run along the groove of one's intention and overlook the actual expression.

Simple English is no one’s mother tongue. It has to be worked for.

Above all, the ability to feel the force of an argument apart from the substance it deals with is the strongest weapon against prejudice.