I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

I think young people ought to seek that differential experience that is going to knock them off dead center. I was a typical American school boy. I happened to get straight A's and be pretty good in sports. But I had no great vision of what I could be. And I never had any yearning.

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

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.

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

We are never prepared for what we expect.