I thought that perhaps the most creative mix for a society would be nine parts solid worker from institutions like MIT to one part poet from Marrakech, but in spite of the fact that I myself had been trained to be one of the solid workers, which meant that all of my sympathies lay with that group, I would not surrender the poet. The problem was to find him.

I have only one bit of advice to beginning writers: be sure your novel is read by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

No man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure.

The dead are dead but they rely on us to fulfill their hopes.

No idea is ever dead until those who believe in it say it's dead.

We are never prepared for what we expect.

I think young people ought to seek the experience that is going to knock them off center.