Can the imagination, any more than the boy, be held prisoner ?" - from the foreword to the 1976 edition of "The Painted Bird

Banks introduced the installment plan. The disappearance of cash and the coming of the credit card changed the shape of life in the United States.

The popular culture says . . . Do what you do, your life is predestined, like the installment plan on your house. There's not much you can do about it. Make your payments, live it, get sick, die, don't make any trouble. It is the Master Charge of destiny. Try to get your high credit rating.

There must be no worse punishment to a totalitarian nation than the withdrawal of capital.

I was pushing myself to extremes in order to discover my many selves.

All my father saw was what he wanted to see.

I am curious about grownups, not children.