Only friends will tell you the truths you need to hear to make your life bearable.

Like most writers I know, I love being on stage. I’ve sublimated the dramatic urge by teaching and by making people laugh.

Only friends will tell you the truths you need to hear to make your life bearable.

Mine [parents] started out more from scratch, because I'm constantly aware of what they suffered in the war.

I think it's one of the reasons I wrote my book later in life. My parents didn't have these extreme alternations of conduct. They were very sweet to me.

I was just reviewed by Robert Gottlieb, who was my editor at 'The New Yorker,' and he sort of wondered at the fact that I still need to exorcise my parents at my age. I think he makes a basic mistake in thinking that exorcism can ever be total. The exorcism of your parents will still be occurring on your own deathbed.

One learns much more by writing fiction, because the insights come from those deeper subconscious levels where the greater and more interesting truths lie.