I never met anybody in my life who says, I want to be a critic. People want to be a fireman, poet, novelist.

The black situation has changed. They finally realized they're Americans.

When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.

The novel is always pop art, and the novel is always dying. That's the only way it stays alive. It does really die. I've been thinking about that a lot.

I've had a tough time with Pynchon. I liked him very much when I first read him. I liked him less with each book. He got denser and more complex in a way that didn't really pay off.

Anybody in the next centuries wanting to know what it was like to be a poet in the middle of the 20th century should read Kaddish.

I long for the raised voice, the howl of rage or love.