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.

Religious hatreds ought not to be propagated at all, but certainly not on a tax-exempt basis.

I never wrote anything that was published until I was forty.

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.

The sense of belonging is one of the great gifts men get in battle.

The really great writers are people like Emily Brontë who sit in a room and write out of their limited experience and unlimited imagination.

If I were a young man, I would not hesitate at writing anything to get into print, except pornography.