"The uncluttered life is the key to a good memory." — Frank McCourt

O'Casey was writing about people in the streets and his mother and dying babies and poverty. So that astounded me because I thought you could only write about English matters.

I had never attended high school, but I was fairly well read.

We were supposed to stay over in Boston, but when Scribners heard I'd won the Pulitzer, they told me to get on a plane - that Katie Couric wanted my body. And when Katie Couric wants your body, you get moving right away.

I've been writing in notebooks for 40 years or so.