Let’s talk, you and I. Let’s talk about fear. The house is empty as I write this; a cold February rain is falling outside. It’s night. Sometimes when the wind blows the way it’s blowing now, we lose the power. But for now it’s on, and so let’s talk very honestly about fear. Let’s talk very rationally about moving to the rim of madnessand... and perhaps over the edge.

Money means I can support my family and still do what I love. Not very many people can say that in this world, and not many writers can say that.

Without story books is like a person with no soul.

It is fairly clear that many of the arguments against proposition testing are really arguments against propositions themselves.

I am always chilled and astonished by the would-be writers who ask me for advice and admit, quite blithely, that they "don't have time to read." This is like a guy starting up Mount Everest saying that he didn't have time to buy any rope or pitons.

Human beings have got a lot of good, noble impulses inside them, and most people want to be good and do more good than they do evil. Hell, we've had nuclear weapons now for thirty or thirty-five years and nothing's happened yet. That in itself seems to be a miracle. If Reagan pushes the button or somebody pushes the button in Russia or somebody pushes it in Costa Rica, they can put a big tombstone in outer space that says, "We gave it a good try." Because we have.

Everything is sort of built in a way that to me suggests intelligent design. But at the same time, there's a lot of things in life where you say to yourself, well, if this is God's plan, it's very peculiar. And you have to wonder about that guy's personality, the big guy's personality.