The importance to the world of what we scribblers write is in doubt, I would think.

If you can propose a memoir, even if you are eighteen years old - and what do you remember? What are you memeing? If you can propose a memoir, I believe someone will pay you to write it. And you will get a contract for nonfiction. And if it is about victimology in one way or another than you'll get more money. It's a sensation.

People do not read, by and large. They watch television.

There is a lack of context in contemporary education. And contemporary consideration - because we live in those interiorities so much. Especially young kids who live by surfing the Web.

I always want to read Gore Vidal's nonfiction. Because everything he writes is an essay and it's worth reading.

I always had good students.

Baseball is a game where you are always waiting, and then when something happens it's like turning a kaleidoscope when you were a kid.