I have a large collection of town cars because when I was just a snipe in the gutter, growing up in Los Angeles, a town car drove by. I remember running in the house to get my mother so she could see it. It was utterly magnificent.

When I was in the military, I socked away $100 every month. When I was discharged in 1954, I got home at 5 A.M. By 10 A.M., I was pulling out of a foreign car dealership in Pasadena in a new Jaguar XK120.

I'm considered the 'old daddy of adventure.'

My job is to entertain the readers in such a manner that, when they reach the end of the book, they feel like they've gotten their money's worth.

I always see gardening as escape, as peace really. If you are angry or troubled, nothing provides the same solace as nurturing the soil.

But he is unworthy the name of a minister of the gospel of peace, who is unwilling, not only to have his name cast out as evil, but also to die for the truths of the Lord Jesus.

I think I would have been a writer, anyhow, in the sense of having written a story every now and then, or continued writing poetry. But it was the war experience and the two novels I wrote about Vietnam that really got me started as a professional writer.

Without peace, there is nothing truly human. Peace is harmony. And harmony is the highest ideal of life.