Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.

I had been warned about Jews by my gentile friends - they did terrible things with knives to boys.

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.

Without vision you don't see, and without practicality the bills don't get paid.

Other families bought automobiles; we had a horse-headed hitching post in front of our house and drove horses.

Writing is rewriting what you have rewritten.

You come to know the aches and vanities and tastes and intrigues of an entire neighborhood at a drug store.