The book can't compete with the screen. It couldn't compete beginning with the movie screen. It couldn't compete with the television screen and it can't compete with the computer screen I don't think. And now we have all those screens so against all those screens I think the book can't measure up.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

A Jewish man with his parents alive is half the time a helpless infant!

Just like those who are incurably ill, the aged know everything about their dying except exactly when.

Literature got me into this mess and literature is going to have to get me out of it.

I came to New York and in only hours, New York did what it does to people: awakened the possibilities. Hope breaks out.

All that we don't know is astonishing. Even more astonishing is what passes for knowing.