How important my books are or anybody's books are, I don't know. I don't think they are terribly important I think that they make people contented during the period they are reading them and this is worth something is to take care of somebody for a couple of hours.

Because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think our lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs. So people pretend there is drama where there is none.

Americans... are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.

If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who.

The primary benefit of practicing any art, whether well or badly, is that it enables one's soul to grow.

History is merely a list of surprises... It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again.

And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.