“There is no disappointment so numbing as someone no better than you achieving more.”

He was never without misery, and never without hope.

You’re an intelligent person of great moral character who has taken a very courageous stand. I’m an intelligent person with no moral character at all, so I’m in an ideal position to appreciate it.

All of my books deal in a very rough, rude fashion with subjects about which there are great conflicts of opinion.

They agreed that it was neither possible nor necessary to educate people who never questioned anything.

Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.

The question is: what is a sane man to do in an insane society?

Be glad you’re even alive. Be furious you’re going to die.

I’ve only had four ideas for a novel in my life, and I’ve written all of them.

I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.

The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.

There was no telling what people might find out once they felt free to ask whatever questions they wanted to.

Destiny is a good thing to accept when it’s going your way. When it isn’t, don’t call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.

The villains will come along. There were plenty in the Carter administration, and there will be plenty with Reagan.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

Death to all modifiers, he declared one day, and out of every letter that passed through his hands went every adverb and every adjective.

Remember that everyone deserves some fun during working hours.