It takes courage to know when you ought to be afraid.

A nation becomes what its young people read in their youth. Its ideals are fashioned then, its goals strongly determined.

I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

Every animal that walks the earth, or swims, or flies is precious beyond description, something so rare and wonderful that it equals the stars or the ocean or the mind of man.

I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson - the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.

All I can do is play the game the way the cards fall.

It takes courage to know when you ought to be afraid.