A great writer has all 4 - but you can still be a good writer with only 1 and 2.

The quality of American life is an insult to the possibilities of human growth... the pollution of American space, with gadgetry and cars and TV and box architecture, brutalizes the senses, making gray neurotics of most of us, and perverse spiritual athletes and strident self-transcenders of the best of us.

Creativity needs to be taken care of. It's like a big baby that needs to be nourished.

The traditional metaphor for a spiritual investigation is that of the voyage or the journey. From this image I must dissociate myself. I do not consider myself a voyager, I have preferred to stand still.

A good listener: a physical presence that is warm, alert, intelligent - more important than any words.

War is elective. It is not an inevitable state of affairs. War is not the weather.

Writing is a mysterious activity.