“I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”

“I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.”

“You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart.”

“What I like best is a book that's at least funny once in a while. What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend ...”

“How do you know you're going to do something, untill you do it?”

“A confessional passage has probably never been written that didn't stink a little bit of the writer's pride in having given up his pride.”

“The world grows ever complex. More urban. Less peaceful.”

“Sunset on the water ought to be a quiet and easy time, but I guess some people can't stand a little silence.”

“drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it as the axis on which the world revolves”

“You need to establish a degree of privacy and solitude in order to write”

“The more I'm let alone and not worried the better I can function.”

“Technology would have long ago made privacy impossible, except that this had only made it more precious and desirable--and in the close confines of starship life, respect for another's privacy had ...”