I have found myself writing poetry shortly after I retired. Which I hadn't done in forty years..

I know important literary writers who can't get published..

I have a wonderful editor who believes in fiction and poetry. She herself is a novelist and poet..

Let's look at what the books are that are being produced. More and more they are being made like movies. To sell. They are being tested out..

It's harder to get hold of the world. It's harder to understand the world, to encompass the literature necessary for the information..

The people who make reality are angry peasants with old cannon shells wired together, an anti-vehicle device..

Nonfiction, for the most part, is facts, and it's "how I was mistreated. I was mistreated. Were you mistreated? Weren't we all mistreated?".

The education of young people is narrowing. They cannot have the scope they used to have. They are being taught in high school by people earnest, sti….

We are herding the young in that direction so that they are not sitting still and contemplating, Goddamn it, a page of exquisite prose by Charles Dic….

I always had good students..

When you are writing a character, what the character says is obviously crucial. But what the character doesn't say is absolutely as important as his ….

I love baseball. What I love about baseball is that you are always waiting..

Baseball is a game where you are always waiting, and then when something happens it's like turning a kaleidoscope when you were a kid..

Good art is a form of prayer. It's a way to say what is not sayable..

If there is some blood on the pages then you have some readership..

The best defense is a good story..

If a writer is honest, if what is at stake for him can seem to matter to his readers, then his work may be read. But a writer will work anyway, as I ….

Hollywood is the model for publishing, more and more. Not just blockbusters either..

If you can propose a memoir, even if you are eighteen years old - and what do you remember? What are you memeing? If you can propose a memoir, I beli….

First-book novelists and storywriters haven't yet failed and so it's easier to publish them - you can gamble on a success. Whereas someone who has wr….

Never use 'submit' as a verb for sending work to magazine or book publishers; say 'offer,' and never, ever submit. Keep your knees unbent. Be brave..