I always want to write something better than the last book.

I am grateful to Stacy Schiff first of all because she can write a sentence-because she offers us her scholarship with wit, clarity, and grace. Once again, she has done what only the best writers can do: she has made the world new, again.

The only real nation is humanity

I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam.

Public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.

The problem is fundamental... It is as if a secret committee, now lost to history, has made a study of children and, having figured out what the greatest number were least disposed to declared that all of them should do it.

You do the right thing even if it makes you feel bad. The purpose of life is not to be happy but to be worthy of happiness.