Each generation ... rescues a new area from what its predecessors arrogantly and snobbishly dismissed as 'the lunatic fringe.

Historians are interested in ideas not only because they influence societies, but because they reveal the societies that give rise to them.

Get off me you dirty turnip!" "Dirty turnip? well, pardon me Signor Cabbage-Head!

I think she is growing up, and so begins to dream dreams, and have hopes and fears and fidgets, without knowing why or being able to explain them.

Nothing won't change, until the choice is placed first. And until when choice is given a chance.

I would live to study not study to live.

That's a huge subject - a writer refusing to do publicity but writing about publicity.

I feel like the fellow in jail who is watching his scaffold being built." (On construction of reviewing stands for inauguration of his successor John F Kennedy)

In a world gone bad, a bear - even a bear standing on its head - is a comforting, uncomplicated, dependable hunk of sanity.

One nice thing about growing up Catholic is it makes you open-minded about other people's religions, since ours is nuttier than yours.

Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave.

Neotony is a metaphor for the quality of life - the gift - that keeps the fortunate of whatever age focused on all the marvelous undiscovered things to come.