When I am writing a novel I try not to read great prose stylists into which I will fall.
The importance to the world of what we scribblers write is in doubt, I would think.
You have to read history. You have to have a sense of history.
People do not read, by and large. They watch television.
Let's look at what the books are that are being produced. More and more they are being made like movies. To sell. They are being tested out.
My heroes are people like Philip Levine, who is simply like a god to me, as a writer. And he is a very good man, too.