It's The Cynics Who Never Get Married.

Most Novelists I Know Went Through A Period Of Intense Self-examination And Self-loathing After The Terrorist Attacks On The World Trade Center. I Certainly Did.

I Think, When I'm Writing, I Have A More Clinical View Than I Do When I'm Reading. I Like Pretending To Be God And Basically Determining The Fate Of My Characters. But As A Reader, I'm A Sucker. I'm Very Sentimental. I Get Upset When People That I Like Die. And Yet I Have Killed Off Characters In My Books Quite Heartlessly, And Sometimes Found That Readers Were Very Upset By It.

The 20th Century Saw Far Greater Catastrophes Than September 11th, As Bad As It Was, And They Didn't Render Literature Or Art Or Music Irrelevant. In Fact, I Think That Literature And Art Help Us To Understand - Sometimes They Provide Narratives And Metaphors For Understanding History, For Understanding Recent Catastrophes.

A Creative Writing Program Is Only As Good As Its Teachers, And I Was Fortunate In Having Two Great Writers As Mentors.

Most All Of The Writers I Admired When I Was In My Teens And Twenties Died Young. Fitzgerald Lived The Longest. He Was 44. Dylan Thomas Was 39. And Then Once You're Approaching 40, You Suddenly Think, "well, Maybe I Would Like To Live Longer Than Fitzgerald Or Thomas."