In the United States we have concentrated tremendous sums of money on the educational plant, seemingly with the idea that the right number of buildings will turn out the right number of graduates. Yet the teachers who actually instruct the future citizens of our country are more often than not miserably paid. If in the future we find ourselves with a lot of fourth-rate citizens, we have only ourselves to blame.

You can't fight the desert... you have to ride with it.

A writer's brain is like a magician's hat. If you're going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first.

I do not believe writers should read reviews of their own books, and I do not. If one is not careful one is soon writing to please reviewers and not their audience or themselves.

Books are precious things, but more than that, they are the strong backbone of civilization. They are the thread upon which it all hangs, and they can save us when all else is lost.

Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.

I'm like a big old hen. I can't cluck too long about the egg I've just laid because I've got 5 more inside me pushing to get out.