Quotes from Herman Wouk

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

I regard the writing of humor as a supreme artistic challenge.

When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

This life is slow suicide, unless you read.

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

Remember this, if you can--there is nothing, nothing more precious than time. You probably feel you have a measureless supply of it, but you haven't. Wasted hours destroy your life just as surely at the beginning as at the end--only in the end it becomes more obvious.

The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes. Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, "How would I do this if I were a fool?" Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you will never go wrong.

I try to write a certain amount each day, five days a week. A rule sometimes broken is better than no rule.

Life is a dream, a little more coherent than most.

He was just head over ears in love, with a young woman as near as his hand and as remote as a star, and for the moment it was enough to be where she was.

The only imaginative fiction being written today is income tax returns.

You can't understand command till you've had it. It's the loneliest, most oppressive job in the whole world. It's a nightmare, unless you're an ox. You're forever teetering along a tiny path of correct decisions and good luck that meanders through an infinite gloom of possible mistakes.

About the nicest thing God ever invented was alcohol. He's proud of it, too. The Bible's full of kind remarks about booze.

Remember the good hours when the words are flowing well. And never mind the bad hours; there is no life without them.

The only true non-conformists are in the asylums; the only radically free spirits are in the death house awaiting the chair. We live by patterns.

I think it's a bit like coming to the end of a book. The plot's in its thickest, all the characters are in a mess, but you can see that there aren't fifty pages left, and you know that the finish can't be far off.

Money is a very pleasant thing, Willie, and I think you can trade almost anything for it wisely except the work you really want to do. If you sell out your time for a comfortable life, and give up your natural work, I think you lose the exchange. There remains an inner uneasiness that spoils the comforts.

Sir, my inferior understanding prevents my grasping the unquestionable soundness of the mission.

So I have gone all the way around Robin Hood's barn to arrive at the old platitudes, which I guess is the process of growing up.

He's too clever to be wise, if that makes any sense. Very

Boys fight the wars. We'd have the brotherhood of man tomorrow if the politicians had to get out and fight.

The Jewish Sabbath may be too hard for some people, or they may not subscribe to its ideas; but within its own terms it is a dramatic ceremony penetrating all of life. It is not simply a day off. This demanding rite turns twenty-four hours of every week into a separated time, apart in mood, texture, acts, and events from daily existence.

With the smoke of the dead sailor's cigar wreathing around him, Willie passed to thinking about death and life and luck and God. Philosophers are at home with such thoughts, perhaps, but for other people it is actual torture when these concepts--not the words, the realities--break through the crust of daily occurrences and grip the soul. A half hour of such racking meditation can change the ways of a lifetime.