Which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages (which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers). How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting (or fooling around). What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words.

I want to urge you very strongly to travel as much as you can, and to evolve yourself as an internationalist. It's as important a part of your education as a radical as the reading of any book.

I'd like to prove to other people that it's not the end of everything to be diagnosed with cancer.

To the dumb question, 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, 'Why not?'

I don't even like showing my stuff to publishers and editors much.

Nothing optional -- from homosexuality to adultery -- is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate.

The quality you most admire in a woman? Courage moral and physical: "anima"-the ability to visualize the mind and need of a man. Also a sense of the absurd.