I lived with the terrible knowledge that one day I would be an old man still waiting for my real life to start. Already, I pitied that old man.

But even her demons she invested with inordinate beauty, consecrated them with the dignity of her attention.

He was one of those rare men who are capable of being fully in love only once in their lives.

There are no verdicts to childhood, only consequences, and the bright freight of memory.

These are the quicksilver moments of my childhood I cannot remember entirely. Irresistible and emblematic, I can recall them only in fragments and shivers of the heart.

College was to teach me that I was one of life's journeymen, eager to excel but lacking the requisite gifts.

Writing poetry and reading books causes brain damage.

Losing well was a gift, but winning well is this stuff of the authentic manhood.

The desolate narrowness, the definitive thinness of experience is both the vainglory and the dead giveaway of a provincial man.

It would always be my burden, not that I lacked genius, but that I was fully aware of it.

In every southerner, beneath the veneer of clichés lies a much deeper motherlode of cliché. But even cliché is overlaid with enormous power when a child is involved.

Become great by converting your time into quality product.

Be patient, persistent and above all, believe.

Let us choose life and love, and happily use our selves up in loving service to one another.

Hatred is settled anger.

One can be sophisticated and believe in God. Reason and intellect are not to be laid aside where matters of religion are concerned.

Music is another lady that talks charmingly and says nothing.

Adapting a book is essentially a collaboration, whether the author is alive or dead.

I think these days an SF connection would be a boost to other books; I'm sure more people have read my two little detective puzzles because of the SF connection.

I got married, other people went off. We had sort of another public-we were our entire readership for many years, and we were very excited by each other.

I'm studying Kabbalah, which is really the essence of Jewish spirituality.