A book is like a man - clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel, and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a reminder that wax cannot hold the feathers firm too near the sun.

No one who is young is ever going to be old.

What some people find in religion a writer may find in his craft...a kind of breaking through to glory.

Sometimes, a lie is told in kindness. I don't believe it ever works kindly. The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow, eating agony of a lie is never lost.

I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage. It's bad theater as well as bad living.

We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God.

Texas is not a state - it's a state of mind.