Mr Michener, as timeless as a stack of 'National Geographics,' is the ultimate Summer Writer. Just as one goes back to the cottage in Maine, so one goes back to one's Michener.

If the French were really intelligent, they'd speak English.

The spiritual life becomes very simple when you're sick.

The actual Irish weather report is really a recording made in 1922, which no one has had occasion to change. "Scattered showers, periods of sunshine."

Suicide is about life, being in fact the sincerest form of criticism life gets.

The town is as full as ever of 'characters,' all created by each other.

Scott Fitzgerald is a sound you like to hear at certain times of the day, say at four in the afternoon and again late at night, and at other times it makes you slightly sick.