And There Are People Who Want To

Our Sins Describe Us, And Our Prohibitions Describe Our Sins.

The Best Thing About Writing Programs Is That It Rationalized The Apprenticeship Of A Writer.

A Couple Of Years I Taught In Graduate Programs At Nyu And Columbia, In The Early Eighties.

It Was Strange To Stand There In Front Of The Mirror And See Myself Like I Was My Own Best Friend, A Kid Wanted To Hang With Forever. This Was A Boy I Could Travel To The Seacoasts With, A Boy I'd Like To Meet Up With In Foreign Cities Like Calcutta And London And Brazil, A Boy I Could Trust Who Also Had A Good Sense Of Humor And Liked Smoked Oysters From A Can And Good Weed And The Occasional 40 Ounces Of Malt. If I Was Going To Be Alone For The Rest Of My Life This Was The Person I Wanted To Be Alone With.

But Really, It Was Reading That Led Me To Writing. And In Particular, Reading The American Classics Like Twain Who Taught Me At An Early Age That Ordinary Lives Of Ordinary People Can Be Made Into High Art.