When I was a child in the Navy during World War II, I was perennially grateful to the armed services libraries for having on hand a good supply of those pocket books, which were so common in that period. I must have read a couple hundred of them, and they did a lot to save my sanity.

A writer can make a fortune in America, but he can't make a living.

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

As a writer I have persisted in my uncertainty, alternating between novels which could charitably be considered literature and world reporting which by another stretch of objective standards might be called history.

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

We are never prepared for what we expect.

It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.