I got thrown out of school several weeks in my senior year being caught in the girls' dorm. This was 1954, friends. The girls' dorm was off limits. Even to girls, I think.

Teaching is too strong a word for whatever it was I did at Northeastern University

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

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

I write five pages a day. If you would read five pages a day, we'd stay right even.

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.

Coincidence exists, but believing in it never did me any good.