Happy Is What You Realize You Are

Nothing Is Harmful To Literature Except Censorship, And That Almost Never Stops Literature Going Where It Wants To Go Either, Because Literature Has A Way Of Surpassing Everything That Blocks It And Growing Stronger For The Exercise.

Short Stories Consume You Faster. They're Connected To Brevity. With The Short Story, You Are Up Against Mortality. I Know How Tough They Are As A Form, But They're Also A Total Joy.

What Shop Did This Book Come From? She Asked. Her Father Was Looking Worried At The Cooker. He Always Got Rice Wrong. I Don't Know, Brooksie, He Said, I Don't Remember. That Was Unimaginable, Not Remembering Where A Book Has Come From! And Where It Was Bought From! That Was Part Of The Whole History, The Whole Point, Of Any Book That You Owned! And When You Picked It Up Later In The House At Home, You Knew, You Just Knew By Looking And Having It In Your Hand, Where It Came From And Where You Got It And When And Why You'd Decided To Buy It.

As For Aliki - If You Were To Stand In The Middle Of Rome And Say The Name Sophia Loren, Or Paris And Say The Name Catherine Deneuve Or Brigitte Bardot, Or L.a. And The Name Marilyn Monroe, It's Like Standing In Athens, Or Anywhere In Wide-flung Greece, And Saying Aliki Vougiouklaki. A Huge Star - And So Little Known Elsewhere In The World.

Fashion Is Fickle, And I Was Published Because I Was Fashionable. Because I Was Gay.