It would be hard to exaggerate Ernest Hemingway's influence over American literature, but his influence on our lives is probably larger still.

It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

The adolescent protagonist is one of the hallmarks of American literature.

I've been as bad an influence on American literature as anyone I can think of.

American literature has always been immigrant.

I don't aspire at present to be king of the hill in American literature.