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

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.

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

If you want to write, write it. That's the first rule. And send it in, and send it in to someone who can publish it or get it published. Don't send it to me. Don't show it to your spouse, or your significant other, or your parents, or somebody. They're not going to publish it.

There's something about being able to literally consume a work of art - then to divide all that pleasure of it - because it's a memory. A great wine for me is a memory, it's an extraordinary experience.

Writer's block? I've never heard of a plumber complain about plumber's block.

I took my .38 out and looked to see that there were bullets in all the proper places. I knew there would be, but it did no harm to be careful. And I'd seen Clint Eastwood do it once in the movies.