If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.

Many people who want to be writers don't really want to be writers. They want to have been writers. They wish they had a book in print.

I was once asked if I'd like to meet the president of a certain country. I said, "No, but I'd love to meet some sheepherders." The sheepherders, farmers and taxi drivers are often the most interesting people.

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

Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually.

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

I thought that perhaps the most creative mix for a society would be nine parts solid worker from institutions like MIT to one part poet from Marrakech, but in spite of the fact that I myself had been trained to be one of the solid workers, which meant that all of my sympathies lay with that group, I would not surrender the poet. The problem was to find him.