You have never seen greatness in a Presidency; I have. It was a rich kid who you would think had every reason to be a horse's ass - Franklin Roosevelt. He was humane and wise and resourceful. He was called a traitor to his class.

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.

You develop a style from writing a lot.

He was seemingly born not only with a gift for language, but with a particularly nasty clock which makes him go crazy every three years or so.

I don't know what anybody else in the world would want to thank America for, but man, it [jazz] works. What I like about it - and what public health people ought to like about it - it's safe sex.

I was hoping to build a country and add to its literature. That's why I served in World War II, and that's why I wrote books.

It seems to me divorce is so common now. It ought to be more institutionalized. It's like a head-on collision every time. It's supposed to be a surprise but it's commonplace.