"Did you ever see the customers in health - food stores? They are pale, skinny people who look half - dead. In a steak house, you see robust, ruddy people. They're dying, of course, but they look terrific."

"Parents are not interested in justice, they're interested in peace and quiet."

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."

"I don't think you can bring the races together by joking about the differences between them. I'd rather talk about the similarities, about what's universal in their experiences."

"I keep thinking I'll enjoy suspense novels, and sometimes I do. I've read about 20 Dick Francis novels."

"There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention."

"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans - born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace."

"I just finished my homework fast, I was bored to death. There wasn't 500 channels so there was a thing for a librarian to teach a kid like me about reading. I started reading early and I read all the time, because I love it."