Don't tell me about the world. Not today. It's springtime and they're knocking baseball around fields where the grass is damp and green in the morning and the kids are trying to hit the curve ball.

Writing is the hardest work in the world not involving heavy lifting.

For those without money, the road to the treasure house of the imagination begins at the public library.

This is truly marvelous work full of mystery, nostalgia, joy, The Color of Whimsy.

In the end, the only thing the true New Yorker knows about New York is that it is unknowable.

They all laughed. I drew their pictures and they asked for copies and I handed them out as if they were my tickets to the show. In the Navy Yard, I could drink with men because I worked with men; in the Parkview, I could drink with men because I drew their pictures. The world was a grand confusion. Finally, when I was bleary, when my hand wouldn't do what I wanted it to do, I went home. I would lie alone in the dark, feeling that I was a character in a story that had lost its plot.

He tried to imagine the sound of the color red.