No physical activity is so vain as boxing. A man gets into the ring to attract admiration. In no sport, therefore, can you be more humiliated.

Only another writer can know how much damage writing a novel can do to you. It's an unnatural activity to sit at a desk and squeeze words out of yourself.

When I read it ["Tough Guys Don't Dance"], I don't wince, which is all I ever ask for a book I write.

The contradictory remarks of politicians are forgotten; the more asinine predictions of pundits are buried with mercy.

We love those who can lead us to a place we will never reach without them.

You don't know a woman until you've met her in court.

There is one expanding horror in American life. It is that our long odyssey toward liberty, democracy and freedom-for-all may be achieved in such a way that utopia remains forever closed, and we live in freedom and hell, debased of style, not individual from one another, void of courage, our fear rationalized away.