For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.

The sharpest memory of our old-fashioned Christmas eve is my mother's hand making sure I was settled in bed.

There must be an alternative between Hollywood and New York, between those two places psychically as well as geographically. The University of Iowa tries to offer such a community, congenial to the young writer, with his uneasiness about writing as an honorable career, or with his excess of ego about calling himself a writer.

I have lectured at Town Hall N.Y., The Library of Congress, Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Wellesley, Columbia, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana State University, Colorado, Stanford, and scores of other places.

Every religion implies that it treats the problem of being and nonbeing, life and death. Their languages are different, but they speak about the same things.

Whatever we try - to be rich, to be happy - death is unavoidable. It doesn't matter how much money you have; it doesn't matter how much love you have. At the end of the day, it's all heading that way.

I'm not interested in worrying in if I make people uncomfortable. I'm interested in stopping women and children dying - that's what I'm interested in.

It costs more money to put a person on death row than it does to lock them up for the rest of their lives because of attorney fees.