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My primary ambition is to be a fiction writer... Being a critic wasn't an aspiration of mine.

You do not become a critic until it has been completely established to your own satisfaction that you cannot be a poet.

When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.

I always just wanted to be a writer, not necessarily a particular kind of writer.

I thought I wanted to be a journalist or a novelist.

I always wanted to be a writer.

I pretty much always wanted to be a writer.

I'm a writer; it's not just what I do, but who I am.

As a youngster, I think I said I wanted to be a journalist, but that's a disguise for being a writer.

I'm not a critic, and I never talk about other people's work.