Writers turn dreams into print.

Russia, France, Germany and China. They revere their writers. America is still a frontier country that almost shudders at the idea of creative expression.

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.

A poet sees things in two ways: First, as a child who never saw it before, and Second, as a dying man who will never see it again.

It is difficult to be king when the gods are changing.

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description. I wish I could tell you about the sweating jungle, the full moon rising behind the volcanoes, and the waiting. The waiting. The timeless, repetitive waiting.