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

There are many things I’ve written that I didn’t really understand until a long time later.

Music had been my first love among the arts, and I was fascinated by it, as I still am.

And I finished college because I thought how much it would upset my parents if I didnt.

My dream, I remember, when I went to boarding school, was to have a study all my own, a little nook someplace where nobody could get at me - nobody, like the football coach.

Write about the things that attract you. Choose your subjects the way you used to choose your toys: out of desire.

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