"

When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not...more

"

It's my contention that each book creates its own structure and its own length. I've written three or four slim books. It may be that the next novel i...more

"

I was too much of a Bronx kid to read Emerson or Hawthorne.

"

Too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam.

"

It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, ...more

"

Time and death: It's the ultimate vision of an artist at the end of everything. It's just what's there. It was not something I planned to do.