Writers, particularly poets, always feel exiled in some way - people who don't exactly feel at home, so they try to find a home in language.
My wife said to me... you never understood what we were going through back home, did you? And I didn't. And I have to confess that.
That odd idea that one person can go to a foreign part and in this rather odd voice describe it to the folks back home doesn't make much sense in the post-colonial world.
There's a reason why young people think what they think. They are taught it. In many cases when they learn at home is erased or countered or overcome.
If I'm home with no chore at hand, and a package of books has come, the television set and the chess board and the unanswered mail will have to manage without me if one of the books is a detective story.
When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.
'Homeward Bound.' I find myself listening to that tune a lot when I'm traveling. Sitting in a railway station, wanting to go home, carrying all your stuff with you.
Nebraska was home to indigenous peoples for centuries. It became a state in 1867, and has produced an important literary figure, Willa Cather, as well as an investor said to be the world's second richest man, Warren Buffett.
The thing is, I have a zillion apps, and I'm always looking for the perfect arrangement for them, so scrambling my home screen is part of that eternal quest.
Pet lovers know that animals sometimes understand us better than we do, and the annals of human sin and desire provide plenty of stories to drive the point home.
My maternal grandmother - she was a compulsive reader. She had only been through five grades of elementary school, but she was a member of the municipal library, and she brought home two or three books a week for me. They could be dime novels or Balz...
In 1941 I finished at Allison Intermediate School (grades 7-9), and started at North High School, commuting by bicycle about 5 miles from home to school.
I'm far from immune to the American, perhaps historically male, prejudice toward practical and physical competence; I hope I've also considered that prejudice enough to have some distance from it.
I used to hold a unitary view, in which I proposed that only experienced happiness matters, and that life satisfaction is a fallible estimate of true happiness.
Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.
We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy.
My books are shelved in different places, depending on the bookstore. Sometimes they can be found in the Mystery section, sometimes in the Humor department, and occasionally even in the Literature aisle, which is somewhat astounding.
Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.
I like to deal with EVERY aspect of our condition, and that means terror and humor in equal mix. Some books have more room for humor than others.
When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written, I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.
Humor is probably the most significant characteristics of the human mind. Far more significant than reason. In fact, reason is actually a very cheap commodity.
