Reading
“Raymond Carver used to teach here [Syracuse University],” said Wolff in a recent telephone interview, “and I came because of him. It was meant to be a year, but we’ve stayed nearly 17."
Paul told me that if he had read my novel Darconville’s Cat in high school, he would never have started to write. And in a way, I began to write in order to catch up to him.
"Hi, I'm Herman Irwin, the book man. I acquire books. I sort them and I bring them to the people who can appreciate them. I'm in jails, prisons, literacy groups for children, seniors, people in …
“I was in Mississippi a number of years ago when an infamous former Klansman was arrested for a murder that took place in the 1960s. I was bothered at the time by the unanswered question….”
“Through most of my childhood he was in the grocery business, which meant he wasn’t home a lot. And I left home after high school. So I thought I didn’t have enough to write about.”
I said that unlike many historians of Bloomsbury, Mr. Bell treats Lady Ottoline with great kindness in his account of her. “Ah, I couldn’t do otherwise because she was very good to me really.”
"I took the wrong turn in New Jersey and got under the Pulaski Skyway instead of on it. I finally had to call Mr. Shawn from a pay phone to say I was going to be late."
"The serial killer has become our debased, condemned, yet eerily glorified Noble Savage, the vestiges of the frontier spirit, the American isolato cruising interstate highways in van or pickup truck.”
"Avedon was amazed by my hair. He kept pulling little pieces of my hair out and you see them sticking out in the picture. He had just the week before photographed the Cirque de Soleil."
“I’ve known [San Diego's] Oakley for going on 30 years. One thing he taught me was how to conduct myself as a writer. which is to say, ’Never to be jealous, never to be envious, never to be spiteful.'"
“On one visit, Milosz came off the plane and wanted to tell me about The Maverick Poets, published by Gorilla Press in San Diego. He recited from ‘Notice’ by Steve Kowit, who edited the book.
The English press follows Amis like Roseanne. Londoners know that Martin’s brother endures stunning depression, that his sister is a drunk, that Sir Kingsley can’t be left alone a minute.
McCarthy said she felt sorry for Hitler who “was so absurd as to want the love of his victims.”. Arendt, offended, replied, “How can you say such a thing in front of me — a victim of Hitler!”
After he came home following World War II, Cheever regularly began to keep a journal. Perhaps, living again with his wife and children, he needed a space where he could maintain, even hide, a private life.
Reader Writers' Faves Worn, Solid, Absolute — Mary Lang Staying Power — Paul Krueger Babbittry — Joe Daley Hillerman’s Climb — Colin Flaherty Macabre Reminder — Ray Westberg My Adult Card — Eleanor Widmer Not …
I have stretched out on the couch — a plumpish well-lit haven upholstered with rough, nubby cotton, ivory in color. In the kitchen the man I love shuts and opens and shuts the oven door. …