“The guilty pleasure defense. In my view if it’s guilty, it ain’t pleasure.”

“To work problems out for yourself, to find you own way out of ignorance, to know the pleasure of knowing - these things improve the quality of life. Unfashionable, even impractical, but true.”

“I love humanity. It’s people I don’t like.”

“I find it tiresome when people parade their agonies for public viewing; the last thing I want to evoke is pity. We are all the walking wounded, your pain is no worse than everyone else’s.”

“It’s not words that fail, it’s the people who wield them. We have no power over life and death, we are subject to pain and disease and misery, but we command words. When you think about it, words are all we really have.”

“Yes, it’s true that you can’t learn everything from books. But you do learn something about everything.”

“A writer who makes serious money is never taken seriously. Writers and artists are expected to suffer poverty and privation for their art; it’s a sign of “authenticity.”