Mystification is simple; clarity is the hardest thing of all.

Perhaps the world progresses not by maturing, but by being in a permanent state of adolescence, of thrilled discovery.

Those were the days in this country where H. G. Wells, Bernard Shaw and Conan Doyle could have influence, and thats gone, thats true. But I dont think we have less influence in the hearts and minds of readers. I think, if anything, we have just as much, if not more.

As I've explained to my wife many times, you have to kill your wife or mistress to get on the front page of the papers.

It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.

The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously.

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. Yet nothing can replace the exact, complicated, subtle communion between absent author and entranced, present reader.