I've spent my life trying to be better than I was, and I am a brother to all who share the same aspiration.

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

When I was a child in the Navy during World War II, I was perennially grateful to the armed services libraries for having on hand a good supply of those pocket books, which were so common in that period. I must have read a couple hundred of them, and they did a lot to save my sanity.

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

No man leaves where he is and seeks a distant place unless he is in some respect a failure.

You don't fight to protect warships or old men. Like the book says, you fight to save your civilization. And so often it seems that civilization is composed mainly of the things women and children want.

America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.