That Summer When She Was Eighteen, It

I Suspect Any Serious Reader Has A First Great Book, Just The Way Anybody Has A First Kiss.

A Writer Should Always Feel Like He's In Over His Head

Her Cake Is A Failure, But She Is Loved Anyway. She Is Loved, She Thinks, In More Or Less The Way The Gifts Will Be Appreciated: Because They Have Been Given With Good Intentions , Because They Exist, Because They Are Part Of A World In Which One Wants What One Gets.

He Insists On A Version Of You That Is Funnier, Stranger, More Eccentric And Prfound Thatn You Suspect Yourself To Be--capable Of Doing More Good And More Harm In The World Than You've Ever Imagined--it Is All But Impossible Not To Believe, At Least In His Presence And A While After You've Left Him, That He Alone Sees Through Your Essence, Weighs Your True Qualities . . . And Appreciates You More Fully Than Anyone Else Ever Has.

I Encourage The Translators Of My Books To Take As Much License As They Feel That They Need. This Is Not Quite The Heroic Gesture It Might Seem, Because I've Learned, From Working With Translators Over The Years, That The Original Novel Is, In A Way, A Translation Itself.