Longing on a large scale makes history.

I like the construction of sentences and the juxtaposition of words-not just how they sound or what they mean, but even what they look like.

I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

We seem to believe it is possible to ward off death by following rules of good grooming.

As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive.

No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.

I've come to think of Europe as a hardcover book, America as the paperback version.

I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.

What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.

California deserves whatever it gets. Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.

A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it.

The value of consistent prayer is not that [God] will hear us, but that we will hear Him.

Fears hide within fears....

My opportunities were still there nay they multiplied tenfold but the strength and youth to cope with them began to fail and to need eking out with the shifty cunning of experience.

More oftentimes than not, you're automatically guilty before innocent.

If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is, 'I am.' To know God is to know that our obedience is due to Him.

I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man -- public opinion.

There’s more time spent on teaching kids about recycling than on character development in the American schools.

I may err in judgment, but I hope not in intention.

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

Stone and sea are deep in life Two unalterable symbols of the world Permanence at rest And permanence in motion Participants in the power that remains