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

I have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. It means to me now--only that place where the books are kept.

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.

The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.

I start out to write five days a week, and then it runs to six days and finally seven. Then, eventually, that wave of weariness overwhelms me and I don't know what's the matter. That is, I know but I won't admit it. I'm just tired from writing. As you get older, writing becomes harder. By that I mean you see so many more potentialities. Things like transition used to trouble me. But not any more. When I say it's harder, I'm not talking about facility. You learn all the so-called tricks, but then you don't want to use them.

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one. . . . Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. . . . There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?

I don’t mind getting smacked on the chin. I just don’t want to get nibbled to death. There’s a difference.