If You Read Only One

I Was Really Not A Good Student, And I Felt That Shame Every Day. That's One Of The Reasons I Started Smoking Pot And Drinking Daily.

In America, The Distance Between Wanting Something And Having It Delivered To Your Living Room Is Not Terribly Great.

I Just Want Fiction To Remain A Vital Force For Entertainment And Not Just For Contemplation. Both Things Can Exist.

Don't Be Pretentious Is My First Advice To Young Writers. This Is The Big Problem - Just Because You're Getting An Mfa Doesn't Mean You Have To Write For The Academy. Be True To Your Personality. Don't Temper Your Personality Down With Words. Don't Build Defensive Fortresses Around Yourself With Words - Words Are Your Friends.

In The First Few Pages, Kundera Discusses Several Abstract Historical Figures: Robespierre, Nietzsche, Hitler. For Eunice's Sake, I Wanted Him To Get To The Plot, To Introduce Actual "living" Characters - I Recalled This Was A Love Story - And To Leave The World Of Ideas Behind. Here We Were, Two People Lying In Bed, Eunice's Worried Head Propped On My Collarbone, And I Wanted Us To Feel Something In Common. I Wanted This Complex Language, This Surge Of Intellect, To Be Processed Into Love. Isn't That How They Used To Do It A Century Ago, People Reading Poetry To One Another?