I read a lot of poetry. I read some history.

The best defense is a good story.

I have found myself writing poetry shortly after I retired. Which I hadn't done in forty years.

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

When I am writing a novel I try not to read great prose stylists into which I will fall.

If a writer is honest, if what is at stake for him can seem to matter to his readers, then his work may be read. But a writer will work anyway, as I do, and as I have, in part to explore this terra incognita, this dangerous ground I seem to need to risk.

I get to meet writers, and I love writers.