To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man.

Four years was enough of Harvard. I still had a lot to learn, but had been given the liberating notion that now I could teach myself.

...but with his mother there's no question of liking him they're not even in a way separate people he began in her stomach and if she gave him life she can take it away and if he feels that withdrawal it will be the grave itself.

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.

We're past the age of heroes and hero kings. ... Most of our lives are basically mundane and dull, and it's up to the writer to find ways to make them interesting.

We are most alive when we're in love.