I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself.

Creative geniuses are a slap-happy lot. Treat Them with respect.

I had been educated with free scholarships. I went to nine different universities, always at public expense, and when you have that experience, you are almost obligated to give it back. It's as simple as that.

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

I am always interested in why young people become writers, and from talking with many I have concluded that most do not want to be writers working eight and ten hours a day and accomplishing little; they want to have been writers, garnering the rewards of having completed a best-seller. They aspire to the rewards of writing but not to the travail.

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

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