When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.

The study of history, while it does not endow with prophecy, may indicate lines of probability.

The difficulty of course is that I like women. It is only wives I am in trouble with.

I dislike helplessness in other people and in myself, and this is by far my greatest fear of illness.

How can I teach my boys the value and beauty of language and thus communication when the President himself reads westerns exclusively and cannot put together a simple English sentence? (John Steinbeck, in a private letter written during the Eisenhower administration)

Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience.

They must be real people. And this means that every word in every line of speech must be accurate and full of some kind of meaning which stretches not only forward in the book but stems from before in the book.