A nice thing about war-not that anything about war is nice, I guess-is that while it's going on and you're in it, you never worry about doing the right thing.

This is what I find encouraging about the writing trades: ... They allow lunatics to seem saner than sane.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

There was no immunity to cuckoo ideas on Earth.

One of the things I'm going to say out there is how grateful I am - and how grateful the world is - for the tremendous gift of the black people, of jazz.

I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.

We'd all do well to start over again, preferably with kindergarten.