It was a bad one, the Winter of 1933. Wading home that night through flames of snow, my toes burning, my ears on fire, the snow swirling around me like a flock of angry nuns, I stopped dead in my tracks. The time had come to take stock. Fair weather or foul, certain forces in the world were at work trying to destroy me.

Arturo Bandini: -What does happiness mean to you Camilla? Camilla: -That you can fall in love with whoever you want to, and not feel ashamed of it.

Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town!

Sick in my soul I tried to face the ordeal of seeking forgiveness. From whom? What God, what Christ? They were myths I once believed and now they were beliefs I felt were myths.

I felt his hot tears and the loneliness of man and the sweetness of all men and the aching haunting beauty of the living

When I go into a bookstore I always look for books by John Fante. If they are out-of-stock on one of his titles, I tell the clerk to order what is missing. I do it because I want people to read my father's work.

Look at the people who review. Look at their commitment to being "right" and "safe". If I had listened to my critics I would have given up years ago.