He [writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton] wasn't a dour monk at all. . . . I often went down to visit him at the monastery in Kentucky. The abbott would give him a day off, and I'd rent a car. . . . We would stop in the woods and he'd change into his farm worker's blue jeans and a beret to hide his tonsure. Then we'd hit the bars across Kentucky. He loved beer, and he loved that smoked ham they have down there. He was a wonderful person. He wanted to read contemporary writers, but the books were often confiscated, so we had a secret system. I sent the books he wanted to the monastery psychiatrist in Louisville, who would get them to Merton. . . . Once I asked him, "Tom, why do you stay here? You could get out and be a tremendous success in the world. " He answered that the monastery was where God wanted him to be.

—James Laughlin

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