I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.

Our Father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.

Men do change, and change comes like a little wind that ruffles the curtains at dawn, and it comes like the stealthy perfume of wildflowers hidden in the grass.

Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.

The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.

The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must hold to this illusion even when he knows it is not true.