Where do I get the ideas for my stories? That’s a legitimate question. Not only did I have an interesting life: the people I met in the army, in my practice, in every organization I ever joined had such exciting lives! They just didn’t act like they knew it was exciting. I did not go around with a pen and paper writing notes. I have a phenomenal memory, that’s all. For instance I knew the story about Sabina, who was our friend for about thirty or forty years before I wrote the story, Sabcha, about her experiences in relation to a concentration camp. It’s so poignant, so natural the way she behaved, so brave. And she didn’t even tell me that story; her husband, Georgie, told me that tale when we met on the SS France about forty- five years ago.
The whole world of truth is waiting to be told about what everybody who writes would give their eye-teeth to know. Eye-teeth are cuspids, by the way and I have a story (now that I think of it) about the woman who wanted me to straighten her dog’s teeth and I finally said to her, after I worked like a mashoogenna for months trying to straighten that dog’s teeth, "A bulldog is supposed to look like this!" and I imitated the dog .with my face all contorted! You see, that’s how I get off the subject and tell a funny story?!
It has been well-established for centuries that, even in a story that is entirely imaginary there is a certain amount of autobiography in the work, even if the author does not consciously intend it to be that way. What else does an author have to draw upon except what he has experienced, what he has learned and how he feels about important values? A creation is a product of one’s mind in which, like in a computer, there are many strange, esoteric, interesting, boring, disgusting, lovely and erotic elements. That is, by the way, what you will think of my "mental computer" when you get through reading these products that actually came our of my mind!
So anybody who wants to be my friend or patient or join an organization with me had better be careful what he has to tell me. He doesn’t have to say a word, in fact. Some people have things happen to them and they are not verbal at all. It’s life and what it does to you that interests me.
I have written three books of short stories, one book of poetry (Ahhh! I’d like to get that book published some day.) And I’m only 91 years old. One book published every three years and I’ve written twelve books, that’s thirty-six years----I’d have to live to 127 years of age before I would accomplish that! That’s not my problem. I’m wondering about you...will you live on after I’ve gone? After all is said and done, this is one scary world. How about those floods which are supposed to take place before 2070? How about the Chinese attacking us just for competition’s sake? How about a Muslim Jihad? How about those atomic thingies? How about the modern pressures taking their effects on you? And I noticed on the History Channel that the Sun will implode in 5 billion years. This is all temporary I tell you!
So what will happen to my books? Will I write an Ode To A Dying Sun? (That’s a great idea!) If the History Channel would go out of business would I run out of ideas for stories? Never fear. I always have you for inspiration

There are the stories that are not in this book that I want to recount. Let me tell you that I still remember what happened in my office where I practiced as a Dentist for my some fifty-four years. One of the means I used to promote this book was to send out seven-hundred and fifty letters, giving Email and phone number to every one I knew who wasn’t dead.. One of the first Emails in response to my letters was from a ninety-three-year-old man. I couldn't wait to reply to hsi Email. I thanked him, again, for recommending me to his friends and relatives and friends.
Whom did he recommend? The head of the Israeli Symphony Orchestra and a man named Netanyahu, the father of THE Netanyahu brothers from Israel and the brother (a famous man) of the guy who sent the Email.
Where do I get ideas for short stories? These are all the honest truth. One day, while I was treating Dr. Netanyahu (who was a professor at Columbia) there was a phone call for him. His elder son had just been killed on a mission to Africa. I never saw my patient again.
As for the famous man who was the brother of the Email expert? He had an appointment one afternoon He was always very impatient. We were busy doing surgery on another patient. It took all my "help" to take care of this patient. The Famous Brother wanted to use our phone. He had to make an urgent phone call. He shouted for recognition (we heard him but his urgency was not the principle urgency to us.) We had locked the door from the waiting-room to the office (we practiced in New York City–enough said). He had shouted that he wanted to use our phone. If he had yelled that he wanted to use our "john" Rosie would have let him into the office.
When we finished the surgery I saw to it that Rosie, our secretary, took care of the famous man. She came into the operatory to tell me that the famous man was stuck in the window between the waiting-room and the office.. Sure enough, when I rushed to the window (it was a small window, about twelve inches by sixteen inches) and sure enough this guy had tried to climb through that window and had gotten stuck. It took all of us plus the patient who had just had surgery to get this famous guy out of the window. He was most annoyed and when I said, "What about your phone call?" He replied, "He can wait. It wasn’t so important!"
That’s not all. My memory was joggled by the Email that this notable man had sent. I wrote this in my reply to His Email. Many years ago I had been doing some periodontal surgery on the wife of The Man on the Email. After two hours I was all finished with the surgery . The only thing we had to do was put a packing around the lower right quadrant. Suddenly I had a severe pain in the chest and it radiated to my lower jaw. Rosie mouthed that I was as pale as a sheet. I had had a heart-attack! I told Rosie to put the packing on and I got into the #2 operatory to give myself some oxygen because I had become short of breath. I suddenly realized that I had forgotten something. I snuck into my consultation room for a quick dose of Chivas Regal (Scotch) before I went into the #2 operatory to give myself some oxygen.
At that moment the door chimes rang. It was my 2:00 o’clock patient who had come in early for some more periodontal surgery. If I had known that two years later this man (he was just a kid) was going to die from Aids I would have postponed his appointment. But I really felt better. I really thought it was an attack of Angina Pectoris, but it was all wishful thinking. I should have known (I really DID know) that when the lower jaw had such pain it was a "coronary. To make a long story short, six montghs later, when I had the time, I found that my heart was so compromised that I had to have an angioplasty for three bloodvessels of my heart.
I saw that surgical case at 1:00 o’clock and spent two hours wondering whether I would live to finish him off. This was a story that I never told before.
Most of my stories are not the result of stupidity. Let’s see: the Famous Man did something stupid. The guy caught Aids because of stupidity. The man who was responsible for Netanyahu being killed, Idi Amin, was stupid (and mean and greedy) in the long run. And I, who knew I had a heart attack was stupid, stupid, stupid.