My views naturally have mellowed. Most of the critics have been more or less nice to me

Writing is finally play, and there's no reason why you should get paid for playing

I cringe when critics say I'm a master of the popular novel. What's an unpopular novel?

If you're young enough, any kind of writing you do for a short period of time is a marvelous apprenticeship.

I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans

In the theater, characters have to cut the umbilical cord from the writer and talk in their own voices

Kennedy was a man who liked writers and even I got invited to the White House