If I was ever a rare fine summer person, that's long ago. Most of us are half-and-half. The August noon in us works to stave off the November chills. We survive by what little Fourth of July wits we've stashed away. But there are times when we're all autumn people.

I'm numb and I'm tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I'd been out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an umbrella or a coat. I'm soaked to the skin with emotion.

Dad," said Will, his voice very faint. "Are you a good person?" "To you and your mother, yes, I try. But no man's a hero to himself. I've lived with me a lifetime, Will. I know everything worth knowing about myself-" "And, adding it all up...?" "The sum? As they come and go, and I mostly sit very still and tight, yes, I'm all right.

So few want to be rebels anymore. And out of those few, most, like myself, scare easily.

The average TV commercial of sixty seconds has one hundred and twenty half-second clips in it, or one-third of a second. We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking.

When a man talks from his heart, in his moment of truth, he speaks poetry.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.