I think my first story sold for $550. This was in 1954, and it seemed like quite a lot of money, and I said to myself, 'Hey, I'm a professional writer now.'

I don't know; I think I'd be gloomy without some faith that there is a purpose and there is a kind of witness to my life.

John Barth, I think, was really a writer of my own age and somewhat of my own temperament, although his books are very different from mine, and he has been a spokesman for the very ambitious, long, rather academic novel. But I don't think that what he is saying, so far as I understand it, is so very different from what I'm saying.

I think that I have sold out sometimes.

I think I've always had a 40-year-old body, and now that I'm actually there I'm like, 'Hey, pretty good, huh?'

When I think of myself, I'm definitely... I'm not like a comedian.