Faulkner turned out to be a great teacher. When a student asked a question ineptly, he answered the question with what the student had really wanted to know.

Of the female black authors, I really like Morrison's early books a lot. But she's really become so much a clone of Faulkner. He did it better.

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

What I really dream of is that somebody would blow everything I've done out of the water in a beautiful way, which would clear the way for something better to come along.

The real question that needs to be asked and answered is 'Why?' Why would any group of legislators want to discourage college students from registering and voting? I thought what we wanted is for young people to participate in the democratic process. We don't have one shred of evidence of voter fraud in this state.

I've been writing about James Fenimore Cooper. He was not a writer. Here was a man who was 30 years old and had never put anything more than his signature on paper.