"Contemporary Japanese society appears to be safe and comfortable, but I wanted to write about the shapeless violence and danger that lurk beneath the surface. Somehow I hit on agricultural chemicals in grapefruit as a symbol. Turning them into jam seemed to make them even more sinister. I suppose I could have used any fruit, but grapefruit has a cheerful, sunny image and I thought the irony would heighten the effect."

"I think the average Jew is probably sharper intellectually than the average gentile, because for years and years he's had to live by his wits. Consequently, there has evolved a race of Jews who are mo…"

"Of all the calamities that have struck the rural Negro people in the South in recent decades—soil erosion, the infiltration of white tenants into plantation areas, the ravages of the boll weevil, the …"

"For Shaw as for Goethe, the obligation to strive is a primary feeling: reason initiates nothing and would stop everything. Its use is to come after the fact and devise helpful justification of action.…"

"If I had done a Disney movie nobody would care. They would not care. You may say oh, I grew up and I loved that movie, that was really super, but you wouldn’t care. People really will stop and talk to…"