The innocence of such children doesn't answer our deepest questions about this vale of tears to which we are condemned, but it helps to dispel them. That is the secret to family life.

I always tell my students the same thing. And that's to live life, and to read very voraciously without any definite program. To travel, to meet people, to talk to people, to listen very carefully, and not interrupt, but listen to their own grandparents speak of their families.

How does the poet transform his banal thoughts (are not most thoughts banal?) into such stunning forms, into beauty?

I wrote a novel called "Blonde," which is about Norma Jean Baker, who becomes Marilyn Monroe, which I called a fictitious biography. That uses the material as if it were myth - that Marilyn Monroe is like this mythical figure in our culture.

A diverse and lively collection, the highest art of the interview.

Dear girl! Life is addictive. Yet we must live.

To the west, the Pacific Ocean, which revulses me, for its vastness cannot be fitted into any box.