In my childhood I led the life of a sage, when I grew up I started climbing trees

Writing turns you into somebody who's always wrong. the illusion that you may get it right someday is the perversity that draws you on. What else could? As pathological phenomena go, it doesn't completely wreck your life.

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

Oh, to be a center fielder, a center fielder- and nothing more

Is an intelligent human being likely to be much more than a large-scale manufacturer of misunderstanding?

When I have a first draft, I have a floor under my feet that I can walk on. And then, especially with the help of the computer, rewriting is so easy to do with the computer, much easier than it used to be with the typewriter. So the books go through numerous drafts.

You have a conscience, and a conscience is a valuable attribute, but not if it begins to make you think you were to blame for what is far beyond the scope of your responsibility.