 All that writers can do is keep trying to say what is deepest in their hearts. |
| Shakespeare, Dickens, Mark Twain, and so many others were my dearest friends and greatest teachers. |
| My concern is how we learn to be genuine human beings. |
| My parents were horrified when I told them I wanted to be an author. |
| We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself. |
| After I saved some money, I quit work and went to a local college. |
| If writers learn more from their books than do readers, perhaps I may have begun to learn. |
| Using the device of an imaginary world allows me in some strange way to go to the central issues - it's one of many ways to express feelings about real people, about real human relationships. |
| Eventually, I was sent to Wales and Germany, and after the war, to Paris. |
| King Arthur was one of my heroes - I played with a trash can lid for a knightly shield and my uncle's cane for the sword Excalibur. |
| After seven years of writing - and working many jobs to support my family - I finally got published. |
| I loved all the world's mythologies. |
| When I was discharged, I attended the University of Paris and met a beautiful Parisian girl, Janine. We soon married and eventually returned to the States. |
| My family pleaded with me to forget literature and do something sensible, such as find some sort of useful work. |
| There's this huge number of desperate people. |
| It was 1943. The U.S. had already entered World War II, so I decided to join the army. |
| Most of my books have been written in the form of fantasy. |
| I decided that adventure was the best way to learn about writing. |
