I'm going to quit writing.

You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were.

But perhaps more important, as someone wishing to make a comment or two about contemporary life and values, I don't have to dig through libraries or travel to exotic lands to arrive at a view of our modern situation refracted through the lens of the preindustrial world, or the uncommercialized, unfranchised, perhaps unsanitized-and therefore supposedly more "authentic"-perspective ofthe Third World. Very simply, this is because that "other" world, as alien as if separated by centuries in time, is the one from which I came

I learned to hear silence. That's the kind of life I lived: simple. I learned to see things in people around me, in my mom, dad, brothers and sisters.

I had learned something of Miami from people who had visited there, so I knew what to expect.

I always wanted to be someone better the next day than I was the day before.

So I'm OK with myself, with history, my work, who I am and who I was.