No Special Writing Rituals. And My Desk

I Think The Writing Of Literature Should Give Pleasure. What Else Should It Be About? It Is Not Nuclear Physics. It Actually Has To Give Pleasure Or It Is Worth Nothing.

Compared To The Unleashed Forces Of Warfare And Of Faith, Mount Vesuvius Was Kinder To The Legacy Of Antiquity.

My Father Who In This Case Was An Obsessive Life-long Storyteller, And By A Very Peculiar Trick Of My Father's. My Father Would Tell A Very, Very Long Story, And The Punch Line Would Be In Yiddish.

When I Was Quite Young I Came Across A Collection Of [franz] Kafka Stories And Read "the Judgment." I Was Just Floored By That Story. I Couldn't Understand It. I Still Don't. I'm Talking About Something I Read More Than 50 Years Ago. That Story Left A Little Scar On Me.

The First And Perhaps The Most Important Requirement For A Successful Writing Performance - And Writing Is A Performance, Like Singing An Aria Or Dancing A Jig - Is To Understand The Nature Of The Occasion.