I never met anybody in my life who says, I want to be a critic. People want to be a fireman, poet, novelist.

There are things in American culture that want to wipe the class distinction. Blue jeans. Ready-made clothes. Coca-Cola.

Henry Miller wrote novels, but he calls his protagonist Henry, often Henry Miller, and his books are in this gray area between memoir and novel.

I long for the raised voice, the howl of rage or love.

I think the pattern of my essays is, A funny thing happened to me on my way through Finnegans Wake.

Gertrude Stein really thought of Hemingway as frail. He almost married Stein.

The text is merely one of the contexts of a piece of literature, its lexical or verbal one, no more or less important than the sociological, psychological, historical, anthropological or generic.

Raymond Carver is good. I think he'll be appreciated more and more. He's an easy writer to imitate.

I have, I admit, a low tolerance for detached chronicling and cool analysis.

My assignment is what every writer's assignment is: tell the truth of his own time.

The black situation has changed. They finally realized they're Americans.

And in this moment, I realize one reason it's so great to have a best friend is sometimes, like right now, Cal and I are thinking the very same thing.

I have found men more kind than I expected and less just.

My makeup wasn't smeared, I wasn't disheveled, I behaved politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?

God has not only created each of us as distinct individuals, He also uses us in significant ways.

We get to see it! January 1st, 2000! We get to see... all those fundamentalist preachers having to do their backpedaling when the Armageddon doesn't occur.

My work is that of keeping every operation down (in size) so that the farmer and the man farthest down can get hold of it.

The Who had a great sense of humor. And they were also very serious when it came down to making music.

If space is infinite, we may be at any point in space. If time is infinite, we may be at any point in time.

To think big is to love the universe, to embrace our passion. To love is to fight for what we love. What a waste not to, when we have only this one life to live.

We don't all dig Shakespeare uniformly, or even 'Little Red Riding Hood.' The understanding of art depends finally upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity and one's knowledge of human life.