I had examined myself pretty thoroughly and discovered that I was unfit for military service.

I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.

where are the snowdens of yesteryear?

When I grow up I want to be a little boy.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.

[They] agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.

Peace on earth would mean the end of civilization as we know it.

You know, that might be the answer - to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That's a trick that never seems to fail.

He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.

But how can one be warm alone?

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth.

In a world where you are constantly asked to be 'committed, ' it is liberating to give yourself the license to be a dilettante. Commit to nothing. Try everything.

To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.

I've never thought in terms of 'men do this' and 'women do that.'

Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.

If my nonviolence is to be contagious and infectious, I must acquire greater control over my thoughts.

Living is the original art. As a young man I wanted to be a poet and I learned along the way that I already was a poet.

I am not an autobiographical writer. I'll take little elements here and there from things that I've actually experienced-counting eyelashes on a sleeping beauty, for example.

The sea cries with its meaningless voice, Treating alike its dead and its living