As my friend George Oppen once said to me about getting old: what a strange thing to happen to a little boy.

I think all writers are a bit crazy; Damaged souls, incapable of doing anything else.

A canteen I remember vividly, and maybe one other thing, I can't remember. And I knew then that he had bought them in an army surplus store that day and he wanted to maybe enhance himself in my eyes, and say, "Well, yes, I have been in the army." Or [he] simply just didn't want to disappoint me. It could have been one or the other. But I knew that he had lied to me. And this filled me with a tremendous sort of anger towards him. At the same time, knowing he was trying to please me, so feeling good about him.

The pictures do not lie, but neither do they tell the whole story. They are merely a record of time passing, the outward evidence.

Stories happen only to those who are able to tell them, someone once said. In the same way, perhaps, experiences present themselves only to those who are able to have them.

The joke is the purest, most essential form of storytelling. Every word has to count.

For one reason or another, I became a passionate reader when I was very little. As soon as I could read, I wanted to read.