Life For Young American College Graduates Is

I Reveled In The Smallness, The Coziness Of An Upstairs Bedroom In A Traditional American Cape Cod House The Half-floor That Forces You To Duck, To Feel Small And Naive Again, Ready For Anything, Dying For Love, Your Body A Chimney Filled With Odd, Black Smoke. These Square, Squat, Awkward Rooms Are Like A Fifty-square-foot Paean To Teenage-hood, To Ripeness, To The First And Last Taste Of Youth.

Italy Has Sun And Tomatoes, And Russia Just Has Real Problems.

Reading Is Difficult. People Just Aren't Meant To Read Anymore. We're In A Post-literate Age. You Know, A Visual Age. How Many Years After The Fall Of Rome Did It Take For A Dante To Appear? Many, Many Years.

I Was Very, Very Sick When I Was Growing Up In Russia. The Ambulance Constantly Came To Our House. I Had Horrible Asthma That Is Easily Treated In America, But They Didn't Even Have Inhalers Back In Russia.

My First Book Really Did Change My Life. It Allowed Me To Fully Express Myself. There Was A Sense That I Was Worth Something As An Artist.