On the Intellect:
“Why is it, I wonder, that anyone who displays superior athletic ability is an object of admiration to his classmates, while one who displays superior mental ability is an object of hatred?”
On Literacy:
“The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters were forced to be literate. True literacy is becoming an arcane art, and the nation is steadily ‘dumbing down.’”
On Fear of Flying:
“I’ll never talk myself into trying a flight. What’s more, there is always the extraordinary publicity and macabre detail with which every airplane crash is greeted, and with each grisly incident, my firm intention never to fly is strengthened.”
On Writing:
“How does one become a really prolific writer? The very first requirement is that a person have a passion for the process of writing. I mean he must have a passion for what goes on between the thinking of a book and its completion.”
On God:
“If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul.”