Religion obviously played a role in this book and the previous book, too.

A guy I interviewed for Hard Times says, "What do I remember about the Great Depression? That I was hungry, that's all." Elemental things.

I'm not an optimist. I'm hopeful.

Something was still there, that something that distinguishes an artist from a performer: the revealing of self. Here I be. Not forlong, but here I be. In sensing her mortality, we sensed our own.

Think of what's stored in an 80- or a 90-year-old mind. Just marvel at it. You've got to get out this information, this knowledge, because you've got something to pass on. There'll be nobody like you ever again. Make the most of every molecule you've got as long as you've got a second to go.

'Curiosity never killed this cat’ — that’s what I’d like as my epitaph.

The people in Coming of Age were far less curmudgeonly than you would think. The greater percentage said that without the young we'd be lost. One woman, a former Southern belle, now 87, a philanthropist, says, "Well, these young, their history's been stolen from them. And what have we done to make them respect us?"