Our Sins Describe Us, And Our Prohibitions

You Go Out Into The World, You Read Everything You Can Read, You Imitate The Things You Love, And You Learn How Hard It Is To Do. Eventually, You Learn Your Own Vision Of The World, You Learn Your Own Voice And How To Hear It, And You Learn To Write Your Own Work. Writers Today Have As Many Opportunities As My Generation Did, But They Don't See The Examples As Clearly As We Did.

Lists Of Books We Reread And Books We Can't Finish Tell More About Us Than About The Relative Worth Of The Books Themselves.

I Much Prefer Working With Kids Whose Life Could Be Completely Upended By A Reading Of A Book Over A Weekend. You Give Them A Book To Read - They Go Home And Come Back A Changed Person. And That Is So Much More Interesting And Exciting.

If You Dedicate Your Attention To Discipline In Your Life You Become Smarter While You Are Writing Than While You Are Hanging Out With Your Pals Or In Any Other Line Of Work.

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