The arts put man at the center of the universe, whether he belongs there or not. Military science, on the other hand, treats man as garbage - and his children, and his cities, too. Military science is probably right about the contemptibility of man in the vastness of the universe. Still - I deny that contemptibility, and I beg you to deny it, through the creation of appreciation of art.

The most racist, nastiest act by the USA, after human slavery, was the bombing of Nagasaki. Not of Hiroshima, which might have had some military significance. But Nagasaki was purely blowing away men, women, and children.

You say what you have to say. But you have to learn to say it in such a way that the reader can see what you mean.

This person has just arrived on this planet, knows nothing about it, has no standards by which to judge it. This person does not care what it becomes. It is eager to become absolutely anything it is supposed to be.

While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles. So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

I am simply impressed by the unexpected insights which shower down on me when my job is to imagine, as contrasted with the woodenly familiar ideas which clutter my desk when my job is to tell the truth.

Puny man can do nothing at all to help or please God Almighty, and Luck is not the hand of God.