I never met anybody in my life who says, I want to be a critic. People want to be a fireman, poet, novelist.

Saul Bellow never took my advice when he was my friend.

I've never, ever, raised a fist to anybody in my life.

I would never exchange my life with anybody else's.

All my life, I wanted to sound like myself. I never wanted to sound like anybody else.

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.