But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be aware of this till she is pretty far along with it.

A chaplain's biggest gift is to be present and just listen.

Statuettes of drunken sailors, velvet pictures of island maidens, plastic seashell lamps made in Taiwan. What contempt the people who think up souvenirs have for other people.

Not having to own a car has made me realize what a waste of time the automobile is.

Women have the feeling that since they didn't make the rules, the rules have nothing to do with them.

Laughter is the jam on the toast of life. It adds flavor, keeps it from being too dry, and makes it easier to swallow.

...is this not in fact the purpose of young Americans going abroad? To make them think of things they never thought of?

The whole process of writing a novel is having this great, beautiful idea and then spoiling it.

In what we think of as bad dialogue, the characters talk directly to each other.

Glenda Adams has written a wicked and witty novel.

Any essayist setting out on a frail apparatus of notings and jottings is a brave person.

The times have changed and now the story is old, but yet it all remains the same, a victim in the cold.

I have found that most young people really want us to spell out a moral code. They may not accept it or believe it, but they want to hear it, clearly and without compromise.

Men believe themselves to be free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.

Travel doesn't merely broaden the mind. It makes the mind.

The responsibility of the writer is to be a sort of demonic social critic -- to present the world and people in it as he sees it and say, "Do you like it? If you don't like it, change it.

Managers are obsessed with the game. It's very, very difficult, if not impossible, to live a balanced lifestyle.

If I had to choose one man to play for my life, it would be Nadal.

I think the idea that a society has to be responsible for all of its citizens, those who do well and those who do not, is really a precondition of a good society.

I do not understand those who spend hours at the theater watching scenes between people whom they would not listen to for five minutes in real life.

There was a knight came riding by In early spring, when the roads were dry; And he heard that lady sing at the noon, Two red roses across the moon.