While I fear that we're drawn to what abandons us, and to what seems most likely to abandon us, in the end I believe we're defined by what embraces us.

In Manhasset you were either Yankees or Mets, rich or poor, sober or drunk...You were 'Gaelic' or 'garlic," as one schoolmate told me, and I couldn't admit, to him or myself, that I had both Irish and Italian ancestors.

Write every day; never give up; it's supposed to be difficult; try to find some pleasure and reward in the act of writing, because you can't look for praise from editors, readers, or critics. In other words, tips that are much easier to give than to take.

To be a man, a boy must see a man

Your best is whatever you can do comfortably without having a breakdown.

Any book is better than no book. Slowly, surely, one will lead you to another, which will lead you to the best.

It takes just as many men to build a sturdy man, son, as it does to build a tower. You will look back on this time and remember remarkably little of it, excpt the extent to which I tried or did not try.