Write From What You Know Into What

If I Miss Anything, It's Being Able To Hang Out In The City Of New York Meeting People And Talking To Them On The Corner.

I Do Lots Of Reading And Speaking At Many Universities About Literature And Also About Politics, Which Is As Much A Part Of My Life As The Literature.

I Might Write Four Lines Or I Might Write Twenty. I Subtract And I Add Until I Really Hit Something I Want To Do. You Don't Always Whittle Down, Sometimes You Whittle Up.

To Translate A Poem From Thinking Into English Takes All Night.

My Family Were Russian Jews. They Got You To Read As Soon As You Could. And Then Assumed You Would Read A Lot. People Didn't Really Tell Stories But They Were Good Talkers. That's Important For A Writer, To Hear Speakers.