You know one of the causes of modern despair is the fact that we have had proposed to us, from various quarters, an impossible perfection.

In a longish life as a professional writer, I have heard a thousand masterpieces talked out over bars, restaurant tables and love seats. I have never seen one of them in print. Books must be written, not talked.

There are still things I want to do but they're not necessary for me to do. I'm not clinging to anything that I can't open my hands and let go.

I look out this window and think this is a cosmos, this is a huge creation, this is one small corner of it. The trees and the birds and everything else and I am part of it. I didn't ask to be put here. I've been lucky finding myself here.

All institutions are prone to corruption and to the vices of their members.

He had fallen into the error of all liberals: the belief that men are prepared to reform themselves, that good will attracts good will, that truth has leavening virtue of its own.

The fact is that the learning process goes on, and so long as the voices are not stilled and the singers go on singing some of it gets through.