We Hated Pretentiousness; It Was A Form

When I Was Young, I Was All About Personal Sovereignty And That Junk, Because There Was No Privacy And The Available Ideologies Were Collective, Both Socialism/communism And Nationalism.

Every Writer Owes Something To A Particular Tradition He/she Grew Up In. But No Serious Writer - Other Than The Militantly Nationalist Ones - Would Reduce His/her Domain Of Influence To A Single Tradition. Furthermore, Historical Breaks Are So Common And Large In Europe That There Are Ruptures In Every Tradition Which Then Connect The Same Generations Across National Borders. Younger Eastern European Writers, For Instance, Have More In Common With Other Writers Of The Same Age In Europe, Than With The Previous, Communist-era Generations In Their Own Countries.

Outsider Means "i Will Accept The Possibility That I Don't Have Responsibility For What Is Happening Inside My Domain."

When I Look At My Old Pictures, All I Can See Is What I Used To Be But Am No Longer. I Think: What I Can See Is What I Am Not.

Chicago Is Not A Bad Place To Live. But The Usual Story Of Immigration Is The Happy Fulfillment Of Human Potential In America That Is Not Available Anywhere Else - It's Propaganda, Really. It's More Complicated Than That.