In My Life: How I got here

The idea that I write my memoirs came to me when I had barely begun to live in Kaufman, Texas, and continued all through the years. But I never paid heed to the plan. I was living my life intensely—what need to write about it? Another reason for my reluctance was the conviction I entertained that one should write about one’s life only when one had ceased to stand in the very torrent of it. “When one has reached a good philosophic age,” I used to tell my friends, “capable of viewing the trag...