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.

Faulkner turned out to be a great teacher. When a student asked a question ineptly, he answered the question with what the student had really wanted to know.

Kafka is still unrecognized. He thought he was a comic writer.

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's somebody doing something because I pushed them in that direction.

My assignment is what every writer's assignment is: tell the truth of his own time.

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.

Gertrude Stein really thought of Hemingway as frail. He almost married Stein.