Art Is A Person's Private Vision Expressed

Oh, It Makes A Difference, I Thought. And If It Doesn't Make A Difference You Will Make It Make A Difference.

If A Person Has A Contribution To Make, He Must Make It In Public. If Learning Is Not Made Public, It Is A Waste.

A Man Is Born Into This World With Only A Tiny Spark Of Goodness In Him. The Spark Is God, It Is The Soul; The Rest Is Ugliness And Evil, A Shell. The Spark Must Be Guarded Like A Treasure, It Must Be Nurtured, It Must Be Fanned Into Flame. It Must Learn To Seek Out Other Sparks, It Must Dominate The Shell. Anything Can Be A Shell, Reuven. Anything. Indifference, Laziness, Brutality, And Genius. Yes, Even A Great Mind Can Be A Shell And Choke The Spark.

Each Work Seems To Give Me The Most Trouble At The Time I'm Working On It.

Literature Presents You With Alternate Mappings Of The Human Experience. You See That The Experiences Of Other People And Other Cultures Are As Rich, Coherent, And Troubled As Your Own Experiences. They Are As Beset With Suffering As Yours. Literature Is A Kind Of Legitimate Voyeurism Through The Keyhole Of Language Where You Really Come To Know Other People's Lives--their Anguish, Their Loves, Their Passions. Often You Discover That Once You Dive Into Those Lives And Get Below The Surface, The Veneer, There Is A Real Closeness.