Anatole Broyard — American Critic born on July 19, 1920, died on October 11, 1990

Anatole Paul Broyard was an American writer, literary critic and editor born in New Orleans who wrote for The New York Times. In addition to his many reviews and columns, he published short stories, essays, and two books during his lifetime. His autobiographical works, Intoxicated by My Illness and Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir , were published after his death. He had moved to Brooklyn, New York with his family as a youth... (wikipedia)

Rome was a poem pressed into service as a city.
To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.
The tension between 'yes' and 'no', between 'I can' and 'I cannot', makes us feel that, in so many instances, human life is an interminable debate with one's self.
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 epic implications of being human end in more than this: We start our lives as if they were momentous stories, with a beginning, a middle and an appropriate end, only to find that they are mostly middles.