I felt more alone that week than any. Sometimes I'd feel a body lying next to me like an amputee feels a phantom limb. All I did was think about Jennie Gerhardt and Alice Quinn and all the decades of people I had known. The more I thought, the more I felt like crying. Life seemed so sweet and so sad, and so hard to let go of in the end. But hey, man, every day is a brand new deal, right? Just keep on working and something's bound to turn up.

Am I a guy who writes about himself in a comic book, or am I just a character in that book? If I die, will that character keep going, or will he just fade away?

It's the stuff that happens right in front of your face when there's no routine and everything is unexpected. That's what I want to write about.

Since about 1980 Kenny Werner has been one of jazz’s unsung heroes

I wanted to write literature that pushed people into their lives rather than helping people escape from them.

Every ethnic group thinks they are the chosen ones.

I think the people who would be the least interested in my work would be people who read lots of comic books.