A little hope, even hopeless hope, never hurt anybody.

Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

Failure is a state of mind. It's like one of those sand traps an ant lion digs. You keep sliding back. Takes one hell of a jump to get out of it.

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. I fear the disease is incurable.

Three hours of writing require twenty hours of preparation. Luckily I have learned to dream about the work, which saves me some working time.

A man on a horse is spiritually, as well as physically, bigger then a man on foot.

My wife, my Mary, goes to her sleep the way you would close the door of a closet. So many times I have watched her with envy. Her lovely body squirms a moment as though she fitted herself into a cocoon. She sighs once and at the end of it her eyes close and her lips, untroubled, fall into that wise and remote smile of the Ancient Greek gods. She smiles all night in her sleep, her breath purrs in her throat, not a snore, a kitten's purr... She loves to sleep and sleep welcomes her.