I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting. The waiting. The timeless, repetitive waiting.

When this is over, I'm not going to be the same guy. I am going to live as if I were a great man.

On 24 October 1944 Planet Earth was following its orbit about the sun as it has obediently done for nearly five billion years.

I was surprised when shortly after New Year's Day of 1983, the Governor of Texas summoned me to his office, because I hadn't been aware that he knew I was in town.

The extreme geniality of San Francisco's economic, intellectual and political climate makes it the most varied and challenging city in the United States.

If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.

I never wrote anything that was published until I was forty.