Sure, I have advice for people starting to write. Don't. I don't need the competition.

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.

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.

College had little effect on me. I'd have been the same writer if I'd gone to MIT, except I'd have flunked out sooner.

If you are going to live life on your own terms, there need to be terms, and somehow you need to live up to them.

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