Can we really be whoever we want to be, now that we’ve collected all that we are?

But once you publish a book, doesn’t it by definition become the realm of public discourse? Otherwise, wouldn’t we just write books and print them out ourselves, and give them to specific people we felt comfortable giving them to–like gifts? Isn’t publishing sort of a social contract?

It's not easy getting old, you know. Things become a lot less clear.

I usually write in my underwear, with a space heater running full blast, and three dogs sleeping at me feet.

The jocks that used to stuff me into a locker when I was a punk rocker are my best buddies now.

Fobbit is fast, razor sharp, and seven kinds of hilarious. Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for the much needed salve--it feels good to finally laugh about Iraq. Fobbit deserves a place alongside Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22 as one of our great comic novels about the absurdity of war.

I discovered John Fante when I was 17 years old - strangely, not through Charles Bukowski, but through William Saroyan, who was his drinking buddy.