We are born in innocence. ... Corruption comes later. The first fear is a corruption, the first reaching for something that defies us. The first nuance of difference, the first need to feel better than the different one, more loved, stronger, richer, more blessed -- these are corruptions.

I grew up in an agnostic broad-minded family.

We are born in innocence. ... Corruption comes later. The first fear is a corruption, the first reaching for something that defies us. The first nuance of difference, the first need to feel better than the different one, more loved, stronger, richer, more blessed -- these are corruptions.

Any life he'd ever heard of, his own included, was burdened with emotions - love, loss, jobs, jealousy, money, death, pain. But if you were Jewish, always there was this extra one, the added pull at your endurance, the one more thing. There was that line in Thoreau about 'quiet desperation' - that was indeed true of most men. But for some men and women, for some fathers and mothers and children, the world still contrived that one extra test, endless and unrelenting.

I think of myself as a plain human being who happens to be an American.

Writers talk about the agony of writing; I talk about the agony of not writing.

Why didn't children ever see that they could damage and harm their parents as much as parents could damage and harm children?