And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.

A book is an arrangement of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numerals, and about eight punctuation marks, and people can cast their eyes over these and envision the eruption of Mount Vesuvius or the Battle of Waterloo.

The only way to get anything out of a writer's brains is to leave him or her alone until he or she is damn well ready to write it down.

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

I'm a painter in my dreams, you know.

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.

Thinking doesn't seem to help very much. The human brain is too high-powered to have many practical uses in this particular universe.