I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.

Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today because if you enjoy it today, you can do it again tomorrow.

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.

We should be most careful about retreating from the specific challenge of our age. We should be reluctant to turn our back upon the frontier of this epoch... We cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand slow march of our intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities.

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

I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril.

Although most of us know Vincent van Gogh in Arles and Paul Gauguin in Tahiti as if they were neighbors -- somewhat disreputable but endlessly fascinating -- none of us can name two French generals or department store owners of that period. I take enormous pride in considering myself an artist, one of the necessaries.