I Should Prefer To Die Laughing, And,

For Me Writing Is Foremost A Mode Of Thinking And When It Works Well, An Act Of Discovery

I Was Recently Asked What It Takes To Become A Writer. Three Things, I Answered: First, One Must Cultivate Incompetence At Almost Every Other Form Of Profitable Work. This Must Be Accompanied, Second, By A Haughty Contempt For All The Forms Of Work That One Has Established One Cannot Do. To These Two Must Be Joined, Third, The Nuttiness To Believe That Other People Can Be Made To Care About Your Opinions And Views And Be Charmed By The Way You State Them. Incompetence, Contempt, Lunacy—once You Have These In Place, You Are Set To Go.

What All Great Teachers Appear To Have In Common Is Love Of Their Subject, An Obvious Satisfaction In Rousing This Love In Their Students, And An Ability To Convince Them That What They Are Being Taught Is Deadly Serious

The Problem For Me Is That Reading Is, I Won't Say A Sacred, But Nevertheless A Pretty Serious Act.

I Believe It Was Gayelord Hauser, The Nutritionist, Who Said, 'you Are What You Eat,' But If You Happen To Be An Intellectual, You Are What You Quote.