There is this thing called the university, and everybody goes there now. And there are these things called teachers who make students read this book with good ideas or that book with good ideas until that's where we get our ideas. We don't think them; we read them in books. I like Utopian talk, speculation about what our planet should be, anger about what our planet is. I think writers are the most important members of society, not just potentially but actually. Good writers must have and stand by their own ideas.

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlighenment and comfort at top speed

Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.

Every writer has to write his speech.

Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow.

Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.

If you want to break the rules of grammar, first learn the rules of grammar.