“For the record, I’m a Second World War veteran and served in the Pacific.”

As for civil liberties, any one who is not vigilant may one day find himself living, if not in a police state, at least in a police city.

What is in question is a kind of book reviewing which seems to be more and more popular: the loose putting down of opinions as though they were facts, and the treating of facts as though they were opinions.

Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they’re scraping the top of the barrel.

Every country should have at least one King Farouk.

Americans, in general, are ignorant, bigoted, and deeply unhappy with their declining incomes.

There’s a lot to be said for being nouveau riche, and the Reagans mean to say it all.

It is essential to naturalist doctrine that literature, to be good, must, finally, be the author’s experience worked out literally.

I think I have a normal threshold of anger, but it’s true that I am, by nature, belligerent.

The United States is a madhouse.

To a man, ornithologists are tall, slender, and bearded so that they can stand motionless for hours, imitating kindly trees, as they watch for birds.

We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.

There is something about a bureaucrat that does not like a poem.

I can understand companionship.

I never wanted to be a writer. I mean, that’s the last thing I wanted.

I am a novelist turned temporary adventurer, and I chose to write television, movies and plays for much the same reason that Henry Morgan selected the Spanish Main for his peculiar – and not dissimilar – sphere of operations.

Certainly ‘The Judgment of Paris’ was the novel in which I found my own voice.

For the record, I don’t worship the devil. I just hate religion.

People are so into digital recording now they forgot how easy analog recording can be.

I let my music do the talking. Ain’t no TV show gonna help me. Ain’t no hit single gon help me sell no records.

I’ve pretty much done records with everybody.

I always knew I’d be in music in some sort of capacity. I didn’t know if I’d be successful at it, but I knew I’d be doing something in it. Maybe get a job in a record store. Maybe even play in a band. I never got into this to be a star.

I usually record all through the night, but I’m known for waking up early in the morning. Even if I had recorded till 3 or 4 in the morning I might wake up at 9 or 10. I never sleep till 1 o clock.

Put on a record and take off most of your clothes.

Aviation records don’t fall until someone is willing to mortgage the present for the future.