Neither Of My Parents Has Been Very

One Of The Biggest Changes That Ever Occurred In My Life Was Going From The Isolation Of Working Part-time As A House Painter In Henderson County, To Cornell, Where Everybody Was A Literary Person.

In The Best Fiction, The Language Itself Can Become Almost Invisible.

When You Have An Idea For A Story, You Want Those Characters To Reach As Many People As You Can. I Think You Normally Think Of Prose As A Way Of Doing That. It Fits Our Time, The Culture.

The Best Books Of Our Times Have Included The Three Mature Volumes Of Philip Larkin. They're Very Short Books Of Poems, And Very Carefully Arranged.

Among The American Contemporaries I Read With Most Enjoyment Are Several North Carolinians. I Think The Best Poetry Being Written These Days Is Being Written By Southerners.