for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized.

(on being born on Christmas Day, 1924) I was a Christmas present that was delivered unwrapped.

When I dig back through memory cells, I get one particularly distinctive feeling-and that's one of warmth, comfort and well-being. For whatever else I may have had, or lost, or will find-I've still got a hometown. This, nobody's gonna take away from me.

I'm a Western-cultured man who subscribes to the ancient saw that men do not cry, I don't cry either. I'll go to a movie, for example, and not infrequently something triggers the urge to weep, but I don't allow myself.

I think I would like to be in Victorian times. Small town. Bandstands. Summer. That kind of thing. Without disease.

The good agent probably is not the reader, he's just the guy who can put together a deal.

If you're really a good writer and deserve that honored position, then by God, you'll write, and you'll be read, and you'll be produced somehow. It just works that way. If you're just a simple ordinary day-to-day craftsman, no different than most, then the likelihood is that you probably won't make it in writing.