And then, when I left Princeton in the middle of my sophomore year, I went into the navy.

Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints --the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk --we think we're using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we're its slavish agents.

And then, when I left Princeton in the middle of my sophomore year, I went into the navy.

I graduated in 1952 and went to Europe, with Niki and our first child Laura, who was then a year old.

I think situations are more important than plot and character.

I'd been brought up on the Upper East Side in a WASP society, which was death on crutches.

It’s true, I had an extremely delicious life, but that was my life at home, and perhaps because I was only a child, or for whatever reasons, I found the company of others, especially other boys, quite terrifying and upsetting.