The education that prepared me was my general education classes, which I tried to avoid when I was a stupid undergraduate, but which gave me the foundation of general knowledge that makes a career as a writer possible.

My mother is a special education teacher but also an artist, and my father an advertising executive. They are about as wacky as you can get without being alcoholics.

My grandfather could barely read. My grandmother had a sixth-grade education. They were people who were industrious. They were frugal.

More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature.

Everyone who remembers his own education remembers teachers, not methods and techniques. The teacher is the heart of the educational system.