In my later years I have sought to become simpler, straighter and purer in my handling of the language. I've had many writing hero...es, writers who have influenced me. Of the ones still alive, I can think of E.B. White. I certainly admire the pure, crystal stream of his prose. When I was very young as a sportswriter I knowingly and unashamedly imitated others. I had a series of heroes who would delight me for a while and I'd imitate them--Damon Runyon, Westbrook Pegler, Joe Williams.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is hereby earnestly proposed that the USA would be much better off if that big, sprawling, incoherent, shapeless, slobbering ci...vic idiot in the family of American communities, the City of Los Angeles, could be declared incompetent and placed in charge of a guardian like any individual mental defective.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
His role was as the gentle teacher, the logical, compassionate, caring and articulate teacher, who inspired you so that you wanted... to please him more than life itself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Whenever [Leonard Bernstein] entered or exited a country he would fill in on his passport form not composer or conductor, but musi...cian. Of course people in the press spent a lot of Lenny's life telling him what he should have done; he should have been a concert pianist, he should have composed more.... And people wouldn't let him live his own life. But he created his own career, in his own image.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »