By the 1950s The Novel had become a nationwide tournament. There was a magical assumption that the end of World War II in 1945 was the dawn of a new golden age of the American Novel, like the Hemingway-Dos Passos-Fitzgerald era after World War I.

America was probably Europe's equal scientifically by the end of World War I and certainly surpassed it after the chaos of World War II.

Just when you think this war has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realize that somehow you still have more to give.

A not-too-distant explosion shakes the house, the windows rattle in their sockets, and in the next room the class of 1964 wakes up and lets out a yell or two. Each time this happens I find myself thinking, "Is it possible that human beings can continue with this lunacy very much longer?" You know the answer, of course.

I had the first integrated Army band in World War II.

Registration is a World War II response, and we need a 1980 solution.