In one deep sense, novels are concealed autobiography. I don't mean that you are telling facts about yourself, but you are trying to find out what you really think or who you are.

I don't expect you'll hear me writing any poems to the greater glory of Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

I reckon I am a smart aleck, but it is just a way to pass the time.

It is human defect — to try to know oneself by the self of another.

For the truth is a terrible thing.

The poem is not a thing we see; it is, rather, a light by which we may see.

Politics is a matter of choices, and a man doesn't set up the choices himself. And there is always a price to make a choice. You know that. You've made a choice, and you know how much it cost you. There is always a price.