I think Henry Miller has had huge influence not because he wrote about sex, but because the memoir or the nonfiction novel has become such a monumental force in American publishing, if not in literature.

When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.

I think the pattern of my essays is, A funny thing happened to me on my way through Finnegans Wake.

Raymond Carver is good. I think he'll be appreciated more and more. He's an easy writer to imitate.