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[...] It was this other side of Avery--the fact that he so visibly had an other side--that was helping me finally understand all three of the dimensions in Kafka: that a man could be a sweet, sympathetic, comically needy victim and a lascivious, self-aggrandizing, grudge-bearing bore, and also,…

"But Kafka's about your life!" Avery said. "Not to take anything away from your admiration of Rilke, but I'll tell you right now, Kafka's a lot more about your life than Rilke is. Kafka was like us. All of these writers, they were human beings trying to make sense of their lives. But Kafka above …

Adolescence is best enjoyed without self-consciousness, but self-consciousness, unfortunately, is a leading symptom. Even when something important happens to you, even when your heart's getting crushed or exalted, even when you're absorbed in building the foundations of a personality, there come th…

[...] If you took away Christ's divinity, you were left with "Kum Ba Ya." You were left with "Let's hold hands and be nice to each other. Jesus' authority as a teacher--and whatever authority Mutton and company had as followers of his teachings--rested on his having had the balls to say, "I am the …

[...] The script, which I'd written, had a large number of bit parts and one very generous role that I'd created with my own memorization abilities in mind. The action took place on a boat, involved a taciturn villain named Mr. Scuba, and lacked the most rudimentary comedy, point, or moral. Not eve…