It's tempting to say the Ph.D. didn't have an effect, but it's not so. I think whatever resonance I may be able to achieve is in part simply from the amount of reading and learning that I acquired along the way

I had achieved the most important things in my life when I married Joan and had the sons. Given the choice between Joan and the boys, and being a writer, I world give up being a writer without a blink.

There can never be any substitute for your own palate nor any better education than tasting the wine yourself.

We split a bottle of Norman cider. Not everybody sells Norman cider by the bottle.

'All Our Yesterdays' was unquestionably the best work I have ever done. And the reading public stayed away in droves.

Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays.

Joan organizes our social life, and on weekends I follow her around.